(Re)Actions - Affecting Change Through Inquiry-Based Writing

(Re)actions:Affecting chAnge through inquiry-BAsed Writing

Katherine P. Frank

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about the author

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Katherine Frank, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and Chairperson of English and Foreign Languages and Director of the Southern Colorado Writing Project at Colorado State University-Pueblo. She received her Baccalaureate degree from Bates College, her Masters degree from the University of Washington, and her Ph.D. from the University of Washington. Dr. Frank has conducted research and published in the fields of Romantic and Victorian English literature, rhetoric and composition, the scholarship of teaching, and leadership studies. She teaches classes on nineteenth century English literature, rhetoric and composition, and pedagogy.

(Re)actions: Affecting Change through Inquiry-Based Writing

iv

acknowledgments

v

This text got its start during a professional development presentation at the Center for Instructional Development and Research (CIDR) at the University of Washington more than twelve years ago. I was a CIDR research assistant and consultant at the time, and I attended a presentation about using Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in science courses. Intrigued by the concept of inquiry-based, self-directed learning, and also perplexed by the absence of its use in humanities-based courses, I began researching PBL and thinking about ways of using it in English courses.

It was due to small mini-grants and support through the Instructional Technology Center, Teacher Education Program, and English Program at Colorado State University-Pueblo that I was able to begin to develop curricula for the implementation of PBL in literature and composition courses. Many years of research and development as well as patient colleagues and students have allowed for the development of this text.

Thanks are due to the outstanding team of professionals at CIDR who showed me, through their strong modeling and mentorship, what true professional development means for successful teaching and learning: Lana Rae Lenz, Karen Freisem, Wayne Jacobson, Margy Lawrence, Lois Reddick, Deborah Hatch, and the late Don Wulff.

I also owe thanks to Gail Stygall, my teaching mentor in the Department of English at the University of Washington. I had the privilege of serving as Assistant Director of Writing under Gail’s leadership, and she is also responsible for encouraging me to apply for the consultant position at CIDR.

I owe much to the support of the Department of English and Foreign Languages at Colorado State University-Pueblo as well as to my colleagues throughout the campus community who provided feedback and expertise, responded to surveys, and attended professional development sessions during the research process for this text. Special thanks are due to Bill Sheidley, Margaret Barber, Donna Souder, Isaac Sundermann, Gillian Collie, Dorothy Heedt-Moosman, Constance Little, and Jason Saphara who attended professional development sessions, read portions of the manuscript, taught problems in their courses, and/or made


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themselves available to discuss the project. Thanks also go to J. Patrick Carter and Brian Wolf for their suggestions regarding readings and to Juan Morales for his invaluable writing tips that are applicable across courses.

I am especially indebted to Courtney Bruch, Reference Librarian at Front Range Community College, for her help with and contributions to the reference and research sections of this text.

Of course, a tremendous thank you goes to my husband, Joe Dvorsky, an incredibly patient, supportive, and forgiving individual.

And finally, the most enthusiastic and heartfelt thank you goes to all of my undergraduate and graduate students at Colorado State University-Pueblo who participated in PBL projects and courses and provided honest and helpful feedback during all stages of project development. This text is dedicated to all of you.

Chapter

preface

vii

The problem for many of today’s composition students is not that writing is boring, difficult, challenging, or intimidating, but rather that the writing tools provided by composition courses are often ineffective in dealing with the types of writing and writing practices that students are encountering both within and outside of academe. Increasingly, students are being asked to depart from the traditional academic essay, often wrongly viewed by composition and general university faculty as transferable across disciplines and beyond the university or college setting, and to produce hybrid documents that combine the influence and writing practices from various disciplines, employ technology, merge and modify traditional genres of writing, and rely upon collaboration.

In an effort to reflect upon and begin to respond to the current state and role of composition, this text offers a solution to this “problem of writing” in the form of a hybrid pedagogy that combines social epistemic tenets with problem-based learning (PBL). While social epistemic theories have always emphasized the three-way connection among critical thinking, reading, and writing in order to challenge students to examine the texts that define the world and their own subject position within it, ultimately these theories remain focused on teaching the individual student how to produce a successful academic essay. Problem-based learning may be used to build on the critical foundation established by social epistemic theories and to extend their focus beyond the academic essay and solitary authorship. By working on problems that rely upon communication and collaboration in order to be “solved,” inspire interdisciplinary study, forge connections between composition and the larger world, and encourage continual learning beyond the walls of the classroom and of academe, students emerge from their composition courses with a solid critical foundation, a broader and more complete understanding of how discourse functions, and a more useful collection of tools to approach various discourse communities and types of writing in the “real” world.

Problem-based Learning

PBL is a teaching and learning philosophy that was first used in the 1960s in a medical school setting, gradually implemented into science and math courses, and has been introduced most recently into undergraduate humanities and social science courses. This philosophy is inquiry-based and promotes active learning, which means that problem solving and student involvement in this process and the course as a whole is essential to the learning process.


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Students are asked to work through various problems by employing background knowledge; examining this knowledge; adding to this knowledge through discussion, research, and revision; and collaborating with peers in order to produce a complete piece of writing that reflects developed knowledge. Engaged critical thinking, reading, and writing are necessary for students to move through the problem-solving process in a meaningful and productive way. Because development of critical thinking, reading, and writing skills takes time, students leave the PBL process with consistent practice and a refined awareness of how to apply these skills and their expanded knowledge to their learning in school, their personal life, and their professional experiences.

The Hybrid Classroom

This text promotes a learning experience that combines collaborative PBL with individual learning. It is intended to create learning opportunities that appeal to a diverse range of students with different learning styles, preferences, and interests. Students work through problems in a collaborative setting that help to prepare them for their individual writing assignments. Consequently, the problems serve as a first draft of their thinking and writing, and they begin their individual writing assignments with much more complex and developed ideas.

Clearly, writing is presented as a process in this text, one that honors each student’s individual approach to writing and also encourages students to consider the different voices, ideas, and perspectives that inform thinking, writing, and speaking on a daily basis. Students are encouraged to really seek out and identify their own voices and perspectives as writers and learners, and also to think about the larger context and social, political, cultural, and economic forces that regularly influence their voices and perspectives. As a result, the individual writing assignments link back to, rely upon, and reinforce the collaborative process required of effective PBL; while students are given the opportunity to work individually on formal assignments, identify their writing process, and hone their critical thinking, reading, and writing skills, they also learn from and depend on the direct and indirect collaborative processes they have experienced throughout the course.

For instructors, the hybrid course format allows for easy negotiation between group work and individual assignments. While the problems and individual assignments build in complexity throughout the text, it is not necessary to teach all four problems and all four writing assignments in a single term. Depending on the amount of time in a quarter or semester and the needs of the students, it is possible to assign fewer problems and/or writing assignments and to direct attention to student learning issues that might require more informal writing, longer periods of time on problems and/or writing assignments, or the inclusion of teaching and learning strategies not featured in this text. The text is designed so that instructors can tailor the specific assignments and sequences of work to fit the needs of different groups of students.

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Preface _

The Problems and Theme of Power

The theme of power unites all of the problems, formal and informal writing projects, readings, and overall pedagogical approach in this text. Power is intended to be studied as a concept, an influence, and an effect in this text. The readings, problems, and formal and informal writings call for critical examination of the issue of power as it intersects with and influences education (problem/formal assignment #1, page 38), perspective (problem/formal assignment #2, page 88), violence (problem/formal assignment #3, page 116), and corporations (problem/formal assignment #4, page 148). The main readings that include selections from Jonathan Kozol’s The Shame of the Nation, Derrick Jensen’s Walking on Water, Barry Lopez’s About This Life, Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers, and George Ritzer’s McDonaldization all discuss the issue of power in relation to various aspects of human life. Students are asked to think critically about how power is presented in each of these selections, what the authors’ arguments are about power, and how they, as readers, interpret and respond to these arguments. Furthermore, as they work through the problems and assignments in the course, students learn how power influences them throughout their everyday life and how they, through powerful writing, can become agents of change. Students learn that through reading, practicing writing, and developing their critical thinking skills that they become powerful communicators with respect to all aspects of their life.

The problems themselves are challenging and open-ended. There is no definitive answer to the various questions; rather, the problems promote a process of discovery. This process is what makes the PBL experience authentic and encourages students to claim ownership of their responses. As students chart their own course through the problem, the discoveries that they make are meaningful to them. They are held accountable for their own learning, as well as that of their peers, and when they report on a problem, they understand the material much better and have claimed ownership of their knowledge in such a way as to better equip them to speak articulately about it, respond to questions from their peers, and argue their position.

While the problems are open-ended, they all are structured in such a way as to move students through Bloom’s Taxonomy from knowledge acquisition through application, analysis, and synthesis to evaluation. As such, the problems are designed so as to prevent groups from assigning individuals certain parts of the problems, thereby creating a situation where individuals solve parts of the problem and the group avoids a collaborative process. It is often helpful to demystify the problem-solving process somewhat for students by offering strategies and advice for a successful problem-solving experience; one such piece of advice might address the issue of problem design and the recommendation not to attempt to divide and assign parts of the problem to individual group members. A simple discussion of how a problem write-up will betray signs of this approach often deters students from this strategy and also provides a relevant mini-lesson in close reading.


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As stated above, the problems increase in complexity throughout the text moving from a straight-forward use of two texts and personal experience with regard to the issue of education to more complex negotiation among resources, the introduction of visual texts, consideration of rhetorical appeals, and preliminary research techniques. While it is not advisable to alter the overall problem sequence, it is possible to eliminate problems and/or individual writing assignments in order to better accommodate the length of the term, meet learning objectives, and best serve the students. Awareness of the increase in complexity across the problem sequence and the different elements that comprise each problem will allow instructors to make decisions regarding the use of problems that best meet the needs of their students.

Group Work

Each term, the announcement of consistent group work comes with its collection of cheers and groans (more often the latter). Students’ objections to group work are, for the most part, valid objections; they tend to stem from the fact that students have had negative experiences with group work in the past and/or believe that they are better independent than collaborative learners. Regardless of the reasons for students supporting or objecting to group work, it is important to discuss these reasons and to determine the ways they view group work as conducive to their learning. In addition to considering student feedback, it is also important to take stock of your own views regarding group work and how you plan to present the process in the classroom.

While this text includes careful discussion of collaboration as a concept and practice, it is crucial that individual instructors are familiar with this discussion and have thought about their own approach to collaboration in the classroom. Just like their students during the problem-solving process, instructors must “own” their pedagogical approach to collaboration. Certainly, we learn through trial-and-error in the classroom, but even as we are participating in the learning process, we need to be aware of the philosophy behind our pedagogical choices. This is why it is important to determine how group work will be handled throughout the semester.

�� Group�Selection:� Will groups self-select, or will the instructor construct groups? Will the groups remain the same throughout the semester, or will groups change from problem to problem or a certain number of times during the semester?

�� Instructor�Facilitation:� How much guidance will the instructor supply for groups? What type of guidance will be provided? How will the instructor define their role during the problem-solving process?

�� Group�Problems:� How will problems that arise during group work be handled? Will the instructor refer back to group guidelines generated at the beginning of the problem-solving process? Will the instructor meet individually with students, with the entire group, or with both?

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Preface _

�� Assessment�of�Group�Work: How will group work be assessed? Will one grade be assigned per student, will a group grade and individual grade be assigned, or will only individual grades be assigned? What is the rationale for this decision?

Regardless of the philosophy behind the approach to group work, the process needs to be articulated clearly for students, and possible questions and scenarios need to be thought through. The most important element is consistency. Changes in approach may occur during the course of the semester; however, the philosophical approach to collaboration needs to remain the same. While practices may change due to student input and/or unanticipated developments, the learning outcomes associated with the practices, the underlying reason for why they are being used, should remain the same. With clear guidelines, expectations, and a safe learning environment, both instructors and students can have a productive experience with group work in the composition classroom.

Individual Writing

The individual writing assignments build on the problems that serve as a form of pre-writing and drafting. The ideas generated in the collaborative setting and developed through discussion, exploration, research, and the writing process help students as they embark on their individual writing tasks. As students work through the various collaborative, formal, and informal writing experiences, they begin to identify their own writing process and voice, and they become much more confident about adopting and supporting a position on an issue. The problem-solving process and many opportunities for practice build confidence and ultimately improve writing.

While the formal writing assignments build on individual assignments, it is possible that with some modifications to word choice and expectations, the writing assignments could be taught without the preceding problem. Furthermore, it is possible to eliminate an individual writing assignment and move on to the next problem. Just like the problems, the individual writing assignments increase in complexity throughout the textbook reinforcing the strategies and techniques introduced in the problems; however, as long as an instructor understands the elements included in each and what students will need to know and have practiced in order to complete them successfully, then there is some flexibility in terms of how they are used and/or revised within the context of a composition classroom.

Conclusion

This text is designed to help students strengthen their communication skills, understand how to apply these skills beyond the walls of the composition classroom, and become better equipped to succeed in their academic, personal, and professional lives. Students need to learn how to view themselves as communicators, and they need to better understand the usefulness of practices such as questioning, problem solving, and revision. They also need to understand that in most cases, their work in school, at home, and in the workplace will


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require strong communication and collaborative skills. Rarely will they work alone, and rarely will they find thoughtful and informed communication an easy task. Learning that powerful communication takes time and practice and is relevant in all facets of their life will serve them well as they advance through their college career.

Introduction: Understanding Power

“I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

As this quotation from Martin Luther King, Jr. suggests, there are different views regarding and uses of power. Power may be pursued for power’s sake—in an effort to possess power and be considered powerful—or power may be analyzed so that value is assigned to a specific type or form of power—power as good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral, etc. Power may be used as a tool, or it may be discussed as an issue. Power means many things within different contexts, and its definition, interpretation, and use often depend upon individual perspective.

Readings

Power serves as a major theme throughout this text. All of the reading selections address power either directly or indirectly. The selections from Jonathan Kozol’s The Shame of the Nation and Derrick Jensen’s Walking on Water address the issue of power in relation to education. Kozol considers the impact of political decisions and legislation on education, while Jensen explores relationships between instructors and students and the influence of power on such relationships. The selection from Barry Lopez’s About This Life demonstrates how power in different forms impacts our perspective and hinders our ability to see and interpret what we see in unique ways. Art Spiegelman’s work from the graphic novel In the Shadow of No Towers demonstrates through images and written text how power can lead to violence and asks us to think carefully about this connection. Finally, George Ritzer’s introduction to McDonaldization urges us to think about the powerful influence of corporations on society and the powerful appeal of marketing and branding on us as consumers.

Learning

Each of these readings about power is connected with specific group projects and individual writing opportunities. You will be asked to question, discuss, and research almost everything you study in this course. Critical thinking and inquiry will be essential to tackling social, political, and cultural issues presented in this text. As stated above, power, as a concept, is extremely complex and requires careful thought and consideration.

As you make your way through this text, you will come to better understand the approach to learning that structures it: Problem-Based Learning (PBL). This approach combines critical

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Preface _

thinking, reading, and writing and encourages discussion, engagement in the material, and original ideas. You will be presented with complex questions connected to the issue of power and asked to navigate your way through these as you present various responses to them. There are no “right or wrong” answers to these questions; rather, these questions are designed to inspire deep and creative thinking, ideas, and discussion.

This approach to learning is meant to be empowering. The open-ended questions are designed to enable you to navigate your own way through the various projects and writing opportunities. What interests you? What perplexes you? What are you most passionate about? As you explore possibilities, you will become more informed learners, more practiced researchers, more effective communicators, and more confident writers and thinkers. Furthermore, you will likely rethink initial responses to issues and be better positioned to recognize various perspectives, anticipate counter-arguments, reconsider your initial point of view, and present a well reasoned and researched argument to your audience. These are powerful tools and practices to use throughout your daily life in school, at home, and in the workplace.


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table of contents

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Part 1: Learning Across the Curriculum

Reading,�Thinking,�and�Writing�Across�the�Curriculum • 3Understanding Intersections • 3Reading, Thinking, and Writing Processes • 4Connections Among English and Other Disciplines • 5The Challenges and Rewards of Interdisciplinary Study • 5

The�Role�of�the�Interdisciplinary�Learner��•��7Critical Thinking and Communication Across Disciplines • 7From Individual Learner to Group Participant to Collaborative Learner • 8

Goals and Preparation • 10Communication and Respect • 11Involvement and Discussion • 11Possibility and Success • 12

Part 2: Problem-solving: An Overview

Problem-based�Learning��•��15An Explanation • 15

Process and Experience • 15Active Learning • 16Critical and Creative Thinking • 16Interdisciplinary Tools • 17Communication • 17

Classroom and Roles: The De-centered Classroom • 17The Instructor’s Role • 17The Students’ Role • 18

The Importance of Communication and Collaboration • 18Communicating with Texts • 18

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Close Reading of an Article • 19Communicating with Oneself • 20Communicating with Others • 20

Techniques for Textual Analysis • 21

Your�Problem-solving�Group��•��23�Opening Up Lines of Communication • 23

Involvement versus Participation • 24Discussion versus Response • 24Establishing Group Guidelines • 25

Group Guidelines Examples • 26Common Group Expectations • 27

Developing a Plan of Action • 28

Examining�the�Problem��•��31Persuasive Writing • 31The Problem-Solving Process • 32

Critical Reading: Problem and Supporting Materials • 33Understanding the Problem • 33Identifying Problem Requirements • 33Recognizing Stages • 35Clarifying Terminology • 36

Problem�#1:��The�Problem�of�Education��•��38 The�Problem-solving�Process��•��43

Critical Thinking • 43Active Learning • 44

Communication: “What do you know?” • 44Discussing Ideas • 45Strategizing • 46

Exploration: “What do you need to know?” • 47Analyzing Information • 47Researching Possibilities • 48Taking Chances • 51

Understanding: “What have you learned and what more do you need to learn?” • 51Synthesizing Information • 51Identifying and Filling In Holes • 52

Positioning: “What do you believe, and how will you present your argument? • 53Forming a Position and Taking a Stance • 53Engaging an Audience • 54

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5

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Table of Contents

The�Problem�Write-up��•��57 Critical Writing • 57

Sharing the Workload • 57 Writing Together • 59

Communication, Exploration, Understanding, and Positioning • 59 Communication • 59 Exploration • 60 Understanding • 61 Positioning • 62

Earning Applause • 63 Acknowledging Assistance • 63

Large�Group�Discussion��•��67 Communication • 67

Leading Discussion • 68 Sharing the Stage • 68 Assuming a Position • 69 Acknowledging Alternatives • 70 Inviting Possibility • 71

From�Group�Work�to�the�Individual�Writer��•��73Writing as a Process of Discovery • 73 Applying Critical Processes Across Disciplines • 74Reading, Thinking, and Writing • 74

Writing Assignments • 75The�Writer’s�Toolbox��•��76

Part 3: Problem #2: Refining Practice and Making Choices

Revisiting�Group�Work��•��83Critical Reminders • 83

Roles, Policies, and Organization • 85Understanding the Problem and Establishing a Problem-Solving Plan • 85

Exploring with Direction • 86Analyzing and Synthesizing as a Group • 86Refining Your Focus and Fine Tuning • 87

Problem�#2:�The�Problem�of�Perspective��•��88�

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From�Group�Work�to�the�Individual�Writer��•��93Gaining Perspective Through Knowledge • 93Understanding the Assignment • 94

Identifying Your Approach • 95Exploring with Direction • 95Analyzing and Synthesizing • 96Refining Your Focus • 97

The�Writer’s�Toolbox��•��98

Part 4: Problem #3: Negotiating Among Multiple Resources

Revisiting�Group�Work��•��105 Gauging Problem Complexity • 105Gauging Group Understanding of the Problem • 106Establishing a Problem-Solving Plan Organization and Roles • 106 Managing Resources • 106 Analyzing and Synthesizing • 107 Refining Your Focus • 109 Documentation • 110

Examples of Direct Quotation, Paraphrasing, Summary, Visual Evidence and the Works Cited Page • 111

Problem�#3:�The�Problem�of�Comprehending�Violence��•��116

From�Group�Work�to�the�Individual�Writer��•��121� Understanding the Assignment • 121 Understanding the Reading and Resources • 122

Understanding Your Approach: Managing Resources, Analyzing and Synthesizing, Revising, and Proofreading Carefully • 122

The�Writer’s�Toolbox��•��123

Part 5: Problem #4: Incorporating Research

Revisiting�Group�Work��•��133Gauging Problem Complexity and Group Understanding • 133Developing a Research Plan • 134

Locating Resources • 134Concept Mapping Towards a Tentative Focus Diagrams • 136Selecting Search Terms • 139

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12

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Table of Contents

Limiting Searches in Databases • 140Understanding Reputation and Considering Reliability • 142

Evaluate Your Sources • 143Incorporating Outside Material into the Problem-Solving Process • 145Documentation • 145

Problem�#4:��The�Problem�of�Corporatization��•��148

From�Group�Work�to�the�Individual�Writer��•��155Understanding the Assignment • 155Understanding Your Approach: Reading and Resources • 156Understanding Your Approach: Research and Documentation • 157The�Writer’s�Toolbox��•��158

Part 6: Reflecting on Your Learning Process

Your�Development�as�a�Learner��•��165Making Learning Meaningful • 165Critical Reading, Thinking, and Writing • 165Where Did You Begin? • 166Where Are You Now? • 166Applying Your Learning Process to the Academic, Professional, and Personal

World • 167Claiming the Power to Communicate • 170

Readings

The Road to Rome by Jonathan Kozol • 173How to Not Teach by Derrick Jensen • 189Learning to See by Barry Lopez • 195Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud • 207The Sky is Falling by Art Spiegelman • 247In the Shadow of No Towers • 251Shadow Boxing by Aaron Rosen • 253McDonaldization by George Ritzer • 257Excerpt from Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser • 279

Appendices

Glossary • 289Web Links • 293References • 297

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1

Part1Learning�Across�the�Curriculum

chapter

reading, thinking, and writing across the curriculum

3

1

Understanding Intersections

All academic disciplines have a few things in common: they all require reading, thinking, and some form of written communication. The way that these are used across disciplines may vary; however, a foundational understanding of how these practices intersect and how you can negotiate among them in informed, effective, and articulate ways in order to appeal to various audiences will serve you well throughout your academic, professional, and personal endeavors.

Think for a moment about the different ways in which writers and speakers appeal to you on a daily basis. College professors present course content in very different ways depending on their discipline. In disciplines involving a lot of content, a lecture format is used. Practice, for many of these disciplines, involves labs or smaller learning groups. On the other hand, a writing course such as this one is typically smaller than many of your other college courses and involves various forms of discussion and ongoing practice. Then, depending on your individual circumstances, think about the different appeals that you encounter each day. If you work, how do supervisors, colleagues, and/or customers communicate with you? In your personal life, how do friends or relatives present ideas and structure arguments? Each communicative act depends on what someone knows about his or her argument and audience, how he or she interprets this audience, and how he or she decides to communicate with this audience. Each communicative act depends upon “reading” the audience, “thinking” about who comprises this audience and how best to deliver material, and “writing,” either literally or figuratively, as a means of communicating this material to the audience.

Understanding the intersections among reading, thinking, and writing is what makes communication so powerful. Extend this thinking about intersections beyond your immediate dealings with specific individuals within specific contexts and consider how you are appealed to generally as a consumer of information. Powerful communication that combines critical reading, thinking, and writing is used to grab your attention and sway your opinion through appeals to your emotions (pathos), ethics (ethos), and/or reason (logos). Think about how advertisements are designed to attract notice and produce consumers for a certain product:


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through research, the target market is identified; the advertising campaign is drafted and redrafted multiple times through consultation with various stakeholders; and an ad campaign is eventually launched that combines written, visual, and often spoken text in order to create a packaged argument that will appeal to the target audience. Advertisements communicate powerfully due to the structured and calculated appeal they make to a target audience. The same appeals occur in various written, visual, and spoken texts you encounter each day. This is the power of communication, and it is your job as a student, professional, and individual to become adept at understanding the influence of power and how to respond as powerfully in your academic, professional, and personal life.

Reading, Thinking, and Writing Processes

As you have probably heard throughout your academic career, “writing is a process.” However, so are reading and thinking, and the process of writing cannot exist without them. Furthermore, there is no single writing process that works for every person. Indeed, there are basic stages of writing through which many writers pass as they draft formal writing of various types: prewriting/brainstorming, organization/planning, drafting, revising, and editing. But the way that writers engage in each of these stages and the order in which they pass through them varies from one writer to the next.

Writing is a recursive process. This means that as writers progress from prewriting/brainstorming to editing, they are not necessarily moving along a linear trajectory. Rather, most writers loop backwards through earlier stages of a writing process as they move forward towards their polished edition. This looping backwards through earlier stages involves reading and thinking as well as writing. In fact, a writer’s “thinking about writing” typically drives him or her back through earlier stages of his or her writing process as writing is revised and arguments are made more persuasive. This recursive process involves revisiting reading and research and additional research based on the demands of the argument and efforts to best appeal to the audience of readers.

Really thinking about what it means to engage in a learning process and to treat reading, thinking, and writing as independent processes and part of a larger process that helps make communication powerful, will not only help you to become a more powerful communicator, but also will better equip you to interpret writing with a critical eye. You will begin to focus on what makes writing powerful, how power is being used to appeal to and perhaps manipulate an audience, and how you approach constructions of power in different ways as you conduct your daily life. Remember that individuals and their thinking are often shaped by the constructions of power that they encounter in various forms. To be able to think critically about these constructions of power and reshape and redirect their influence through your own powerful communication strategies is a way to assert your own individual perspective and leave your mark on the world.

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Reading, Thinking, and Writing Across the Curriculum _

Connections Among English and Other Disciplines

The way that individuals leave their mark on the world is typically through some form of communication. It is important, then, to think about communication in broad terms extending beyond written communication. What are some methods of communication that fall outside the scope of more traditional written communication? Consider the following:

Artwork

Architecture

Music

Dance

Theatre

Clothing

Landscaping

Design

Invention

When you begin to think about communication in these ways, it is easier to understand how study in a college composition classroom can serve you well in other disciplines. All of these methods of communication involve consideration of audience, reading, thinking, and various forms of communication, including writing. The practice you will experience in a college composition course will help you to succeed in the other disciplines during your college career.

Part of becoming a college student means learning what it means to be one. Most of the introductory courses that you take in college will teach you more about what the course title itself signifies. In a composition course, for example, you will learn about your own learning process and begin to develop a philosophy of learning that will help guide you through the increasing complexity and rigor of your post-secondary studies. You will consider how you learn best, explore study strategies, practice time management, learn more about your institution, hone your research skills, become better acquainted with academic discourse, gain confidence as a scholar, and most importantly develop critical reading, thinking, and writing skills. You will become a more effective communicator through your experience in this writing course, and the knowledge that informs and skills that comprise an effective communicator will serve you well in any discipline you decide to pursue during your post-secondary career.

The Challenges and Rewards of Interdisciplinary Study

As ironic as it may seem, it is often more challenging to ignore the intersections among the courses you take in college than to acknowledge them. Indeed, it often makes a focus of study


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more complicated when you begin to deconstruct the intersections and become interested in pursuing new ideas or experiencing the excitement and productive frustration that comes with pursuing a tangent or two. And while it is not always necessary to actively seek out intersections among disciplines, it serves us well as learners, professionals, individuals, and citizens if we remain aware and accepting of them.

Becoming an effective communicator means that you are open to learning from others. This is the way that we learn how to read and understand our potential audience members, to consider counter-arguments, and to best put forth productive and meaningful ideas. Everyone learns from their interactions with others, whether it be through discussion or through written communication. Even as you begin to discover your specific course of study in college, it is important to watch for these intersections with different disciplines and the individuals and forms of communication that inform the ideas explored in these disciplines so that your own knowledge-base develops and you hone your communication skills. Learning to learn through communication with others and becoming an interdisciplinary learner are two of the most important tools that you will take with you from this course.

chapter

the role of the interdisciplinary learner

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2Critical Thinking and Communication Across Disciplines

One of the most transferable skills across disciplines, professions, and throughout life is communication. Strong communication skills—written and oral—will serve you well in all areas of your life. As emphasized in the preceding chapter, becoming an effective communicator means that you are open to learning from others. This means that you are willing to invest the time necessary to listen to, converse with, and collaborate with others. This also means that you are open to learning through exposure to different disciplines and applying this knowledge to your learning in your chosen academic area(s). Whether you are exited about your chosen field, eager to find one, or looking forward to refining your experience, your learning will be enhanced and deepened through your ability to learn from various disciplines. This type of interdisciplinary learning will challenge you to think across disciplines and sharpen your critical thinking skills.

Professors from across disciplines tout strong critical thinking skills as the most important skill contributing to successful written and spoken communication. Asked if they viewed critical thinking skills as important to the writing process, university professors responded with the following:

�� Computer� Information� Systems:� “Absolutely! The students must read very complex problem statements and then be able to formulate a proper response. Some assignments require the students to actually find the best solution to the problem and then present their solution to the class.”

�� History: “Absolutely. Yes. […] I see part of my job as teaching ‘active reading’ to history majors, and critical thinking is built into the active reading as well as the writing assignments.”

�� Mathematics:��“Yes. At root, writing is about articulated thought. Reading helps form thinking, style, care with language and interpretative skill. Critical thinking training and practice can raise self awareness of one’s own common errors in reasoning and expression.”


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� Biology:� � “Absolutely. […] Writing is really about expressing yourself, and if you can’t think critically, I suppose you could express yourself well, but it wouldn’t be something very good to read, at least in the sciences. We want to read about the good thoughts people have, not their opinions or their parroting of other material.”

�� Accounting:� “Absolutely. Reading and comprehension skills are necessary to assimilate information so the critical thinking skills can be utilized to convey technical accounting information in a clear, concise manner.”

Likewise, a survey of 120 members of Business Roundtable conducted in spring 2004 by the National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools, and Colleges and published in the report, Writing: A Ticket to Work…Or a Ticket Out, reveals that “good writing is taken as a given in today’s professional work” (A: 5). Specific comments regarding writing reveal the three-way connection among critical reading, thinking, and writing emphasized by the university professors quoted above:

�� “My view is that good writing is a sign of good thinking. Writing that is persuasive, logical, and orderly is impressive. Writing that’s not careful can be a signal of unclear thinking.” (A: 8)

�� “People’s writing skills are not where they need to be. Apart from grammar, many employees don’t understand the need for an appropriate level of detail, reasoning, structure, and the like.” (A: 14)

Clearly, not only are strong critical reading, thinking, and writing skills transferable across disciplines, but they will also inform your learning in these areas and help you to think and work across them as you progress in your selected field(s) of study. Remember, strong critical thinking skills help you to analyze and synthesize material and ultimately achieve a more thorough understanding of an issue, concept, or idea. With this informed understanding you are better equipped to pass judgment and/or state a position regarding subject matter under consideration. This ability to engage in higher-order, critical thinking is a sign of an adept problem-solver and strong communicator.

From Individual Learner to Group Participant to Collaborative Learner

Everyone has their own learning process and philosophy of learning. However, many of us do not think about articulating this philosophy in great detail. Stop reading for a moment and engage in a free writing activity.

Contemplate and respond to the following question:

� What is your learning philosophy?

Your response does not need to be a polished, formal edition; rather,

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The Role of the Interdisciplinary Learner _

write for about ten minutes in response to this question. If you feel stuck, think for a moment about what you consider learning to be:

� What constitutes learning, and how do you define it?

Also contemplate how you learn.

� What steps do you engage in as a learner?

Finally, perhaps consider why you learn.

� Why do you consider learning as important to your life?

As you think through the “what,” “how,” and “why” of learning, you will begin to witness your philosophy of learning take shape.

After freewriting on this topic, either reread your response on your own or exchange the response with a classmate. As you reread the response in your possession, identify evidence of individual or independent�learning (learning that is pursued and directed by an individual and not a pair or group of people) and shared�learning (learning that involves more than one person).

Consider this evidence and think about what it signifies regarding a philosophy of learning:

� What does it mean when learning is described as independent learning, and what does it mean when learning is shared?

� How do both types of experiences contribute to the learning process?

� How do these experiences contribute to your work and day-to-day business in the real world?

1. You are presenting your general topic (learning).

2. You are explaining how you learn and how your discussion of learning will unfold.

3. You are presenting a position (expressing a judgment) regarding why your philosophy of learning is important for a larger audience to consider.

Your Learning Philosophy


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Learning does not happen in a vacuum. Either directly or indirectly, external stimuli, including people, location, circumstances, etc., influence the way we learn. At times we certainly are individual learners who engage in study in a quiet room or think critically about an issue and begin to form our own, original opinions. Other times, we participate in a group learning context, perhaps assigned to this group in a class or by a supervisor, and we learn through interactions with group members. Finally, we engage in collaborative�learning, a committed process that involves focused and committed work that demonstrates shared learning, goals, and group process. These different types of learning demonstrate different patterns of engagement with the material and your peers. As your work in this course will reveal, various types of learning yield different results and are ultimately assigned different levels of value. You will also discover that, once you begin to think about collaborative learning and the way that it influences the learner, it becomes quite difficult to think of any type of learning as an entirely individual or independent process. Evidence of direct—deliberate and overtly apparent—and indirect—influential and subtle—collaboration shows itself in various learning contexts. You may reach a point in the collaborative learning process when you begin to see evidence of it in your own learning moments. For example, during a revision process for a paper, you may find yourself conversing with yourself regarding choices that you make—trying out a writing technique and then considering a different approach. In a way, then, you are collaborating with yourself as you work towards a final edition that is satisfactory to the various elements of your personality.

The point of considering the differences and connections among the various learning experiences is to prepare you to think about the types of writing that you will do in this course. You will begin to see as you work through different activities that engaged, critical thinking is crucial to successful writing, and that the collaborative behavior that you begin to practice will not only make you a stronger collaborative learner, but also a more engaged individual learner. It will also become evident how collaborative practices and an understanding of how they contribute to your learning philosophy and process will make you a more effective interdisciplinary learner.

Goals and PreparationYour experience as an individual learner and group member has probably revealed how essential goal setting and preparation are to learning in general. It is very difficult to understand the relevance of your learning if you do not have a goal in mind. Furthermore, without a goal, it is quite difficult to prepare to work towards that goal: how do you gather resources, budget time, and meet deadlines without a clear goal?

Probably one of the most familiar complaints about traditional group work is that group members often fail to come to meetings prepared, function according to established guidelines, and/or meet deadlines. Problem-based learning, the structured collaborative group work that you will experience in this course, will require you to generate group guidelines for each problem-solving writing task you are assigned. These guidelines will serve as a sort of

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The Role of the Interdisciplinary Learner _

contract among group members to ensure that expectations are met. What you will likely experience as an individual learner in this course is that you will begin to hold yourself to goals and preparation guidelines that you need to meet when it comes to completing projects. This practice will serve you well as a new college student as you think about your goals for attending college and how you can budget your time and plan ahead in order to be as prepared as possible for your current and future courses and professional and personal endeavors.

Communication and RespectAs already discussed in Part 1 of this text, strong communication skills depend upon respect. Within an academic setting, respect means many different things: respect for other disciplines, respect for others’ ideas, respect for different perspectives, respect for various beliefs, respect for different ways of learning, etc. With respect, of course, comes the willingness to commit the time and attention to listening, thinking, and learning and making connections among the various sources of learning. It is important to keep in mind that connections do not always signify absolute similarities and/or ease; rather, connections can consist of sources of tension and complications. Perhaps a more appropriate way of thinking about connections is actually as intersections—places where ideas, knowledge, experiences, etc. intersect and continue progressing. This way of thinking emphasizes process, and a learning process is what you will be discovering, engaging in, and perhaps reconfiguring throughout the duration of your time in this course and beyond.

Involvement and DiscussionEffective collaboration depends upon dedicated involvement by all participants. This is why taking the time to set goals and prepare is so essential to the process. It is also why such goals and preparatory plans depend upon a climate of respect and clear and thorough communication. If goal setting and planning are superficial, then this weakness will become apparent through a breakdown in communication and the collaborative learning process. However, if goal setting and planning is the result of careful thinking and group effort, then, more times than not, respect is fostered and persists throughout the process and strong communication ensues.

Almost by pure association, then, strong communication signifies involvement by participants. If strong communication is happening, then various project members are involved in communication itself and ensuring that it takes place. But involvement can mean more than just communication; it also signifies active participation in a larger process. Being actively involved in a process does not mean that you are necessarily in charge of this process, it does not necessarily mean that the success of the project rests on you, and it does not mean that you should do all the work. Rather, active involvement signifies authentic and meaningful engagement; it means that you have a stake in the success of the project and are invested in helping it towards success.


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Active involvement, authentic and meaningful engagement, and investment in a process are often exemplified through group discussion. Discussion signifies a level of involvement that is deeper than might emerge through casual conversation. There is nothing wrong with such conversation; in fact, conversation might be compared with the brainstorming and prewriting stage of a formal writing process. However, discussion often involves engaged, critical thinking, and it also requires respect and strong communication skills. As you move deeper into your problem-solving projects and individually-produced, formal, written projects, you will rely more heavily on the types of discussions that allow you to grapple with and untangle difficult concepts, state a position, and generate a persuasive argument.

Possibility and SuccessWhen goal setting and adequate planning occur, respect is fostered, and communication is encouraged, then involvement deepens and discussions emerge. When the time is dedicated to working towards reaching a common goal, and that specific goal is in sight, all sorts of possibilities present themselves and success is imminent. Part of the excitement that grows from critical thinking, interdisciplinary learning, and collaborative practices is that new possibilities are discovered. During the process of solving a problem or working through complex ideas, new knowledge is gained that may open up new avenues of interest for you. These new areas of interest will create new possibilities for you either within your established area of study or in a new area altogether.

Part of the post-secondary experience includes granting yourself permission to explore as you gain knowledge and work towards your individual goals. Exploring does not mean falling behind on academic, professional, and personal goals, but it does mean being open to making new discoveries if they come your way. Because, if you stop to think about it, the discovery process is what real world learning is all about. As engaged citizens, we are learning new things on a daily basis because the world is full of new possibilities and potential discoveries.

This text is designed to help remind you of the discoveries that are available on a daily basis for those of us cognizant enough of our own learning process and philosophy, willing to take the time necessary to engage critically with our world, and patient and respectful enough to learn from others. It is also designed to encourage the practice that will make you a powerful communicator, equip you to make meaningful contributions through all aspects of your life, and allow you to engage in authentic ways with the real world around you.

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Part2Problem-Solving:��An�Overview

chapter

problem-based learning

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3

An Explanation

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is a process that requires you to ask questions and make discoveries. Just like doctors who examine patients, diagnose an ailment, and recommend a course of treatment, you will examine problems that deal with social issues, analyze the problem, and recommend a course of action. Your main objective will not be to “solve” the problem, as these problems are not designed to lead to a definitive answer; rather, your job will be to work through these as part of a small group of peers, identify what you already know, determine what you need to research, grapple with the challenges the problem presents, generate compelling ideas and strategies, and communicate and collaborate as a group in order to integrate all of these materials and ideas into a meaningful written whole.

PBL is only part of the writing process that you will use in this course. As you know, writing takes time. The expression “a paper is never done, it is only due,” emphasizes the reality that all writing (even that which is published and available for public consumption) may be improved. As students in a college-level course, you will be expected to produce written projects that are then submitted to your instructor and assessed in some way. You, like all individuals who face deadlines in their personal and professional lives, will be expected to meet formal deadlines; however, meeting a formal deadline does not necessary mean that a project is perfect, and the process in which you engaged in order to meet that deadline is just as important as the deadline itself. This process introduces you to and allows you to practice strategies and techniques that may be utilized for future writing projects. You are given the opportunity to identify strategies and techniques that work for you and to define your own writing process and not rely on one model that is defined for you.

Process and ExperiencePBL will introduce you to strategies and techniques that you can then apply to projects in other courses and in your personal and professional life. Especially helpful for written projects will be the exposure to active learning, critical and creative thinking, interdisciplinary tools, and communication that PBL provides. Practicing these tools and strategies will prepare you


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to tackle difficult questions, situations, and projects; recognize and work through challenges; work effectively with others; make decisions and assert a position; and communicate this position in clear and well supported ways to diverse audiences.

Active LearningQuite simply, active learning means that your involvement in the course is integral to the learning process. Active engagement in not just the problem solving process, but in all aspects of the course is essential to your learning and hence success. The problems that you will work through deal with current, real-world issues that everyone must confront to some degree on almost a daily basis. This means that you are already involved with these problems in some way and in a position to grapple with them based on your existing knowledge and in an even more effective manner through the expertise and knowledge gained through the problem solving process.

The fact that there is no single correct or incorrect answer to each problem allows you the freedom to explore possible responses and research routes. Problem solving, within this context, allows for and promotes a process of discovery. Of course you must pay attention to the problem requirements, but the choices that your group makes during the problem solving process should be based on your interests, passions, and discoveries. Using the problem structure for guidance, explore the research possibilities, creative responses, and opportunities for choice that the problem solving process fosters. Get excited about your discoveries, take ownership of your project, and seize the chance to grapple with difficult issues and inform your peers about viable responses to these issues.

Critical and Creative ThinkingWithin this context, critical does not mean something negative; rather, critical� thinking signifies the process of thinking carefully, analyzing, considering small details, and asking questions. When you think about something critically, you consider various perspectives on and approaches to the subject, tackle potential challenges or questions that emerge, struggle through contradictions and beyond obstacles, and formulate potential solutions or responses to your subject. This is what you will be doing throughout the problem solving process, and this practice will become absolutely essential to your writing process. You will be given the opportunity to practice these techniques in a small group setting and to experience the different approaches to critical thinking practiced by your peers; hence, you will come away from the problem solving experience with a large repertoire of approaches to critical thinking as well as a clearer understanding of your own strengths as a critical thinker.

Problem solving also invites creativity. Perhaps just as important as your commitment to critical thinking and active learning is your ability to think creatively as you work through and respond to the problems. We have all heard the expression “think outside the box”; this is crucial to do during this process. Since the problems allow for flexibility in terms

17

Problem-Based Learning

of the approaches you take to them, embrace this freedom and try new things in terms of your thinking, planning, research, and writing. Take advantage of the various strengths and interests that your group members bring to the process, and explore creative ways of responding to the problems that may be considered when you approach other assignments.

Interdisciplinary ToolsAll of the problems are interdisciplinary in scope and encourage interdisciplinary thinking and approaches during the problem solving process. Most likely your group members will bring diverse interests and skills to the process; use these strengths to approach the problems innovatively and thoroughly. Take the time to get to know your group members and what they bring to the group. A strong response to a problem will reflect productive group work through cohesion, creativity, and detail.

CommunicationCommunication is crucial to the problem solving process. You will practice both oral and written communication in your small groups. It is important to make your group expectations clear from the outset of the process and adhere to the guidelines established by group members. Each group member must think carefully about how he or she communicates with other group members; difficulties must be addressed and successes should be acknowledged. Likewise, communication will be crucial when it comes time to produce your problem write-up. Who is the audience for your work? How have you communicated your response? Critical and creative choices require careful presentation that considers well-constructed arguments, clear organization and development, deliberate word choice and tone, and an edited document. The problem write-up that you turn in for assessment may not be as polished as a final paper or written project, but it should be edited and presented in such a way as to be convincing and taken seriously.

Classroom�and�Roles:��The�De-centered�Classroom

Classrooms that include PBL function differently than most “traditional” classrooms. Do not expect pure lecture in a PBL classroom! Instead, as you already know by reading this chapter, a successful problem solving process depends upon students’ engagement in the process; your enthusiasm, hard work, and creativity should lead to discoveries that help to teach the entire classroom community, including your instructor. Hence, authority in a classroom that includes PBL, especially during the problem-solving process, is considered “de-centered”; this means that responsibility for instruction is shared among all of the members (instructor and students) of the classroom learning community.

The Instructor’s RoleYour instructor will act as a facilitator during the problem solving process. It is your job to chart a path through the problem—from planning to researching to drafting to editing—


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your group will face challenges, and it is your responsibility as a group to navigate your way through these challenges. If you get stuck, if you run into an obstacle that you cannot move beyond, your instructor will help you beyond this challenge, but do not expect your instructor to instruct you directly throughout the entire problem solving process. As problem solvers you own this process, and your instructor and peers are depending upon you for instruction.

The Students’ RoleStudents occupy two roles during the problem solving process: learner and instructor. You are part of a large community of learners who are all engaged in the same process, and you are part of a small community of learners who are working together to respond to the problem. At times you will listen to your peers and observe other groups. Then there will be other times when you work on your own or in pairs researching possibilities and generating material. And then, at times, you will make contributions to the group, offer suggestions, and provide direction. Your willingness to be flexible, responsible, and respectful is critical to the problem solving process. Effective collaboration requires fulfillment of duties and expectations, meaningful contributions, and the willingness to learn from others.

The�Importance�of�Communication�and�Collaboration

Communication during the problem solving process occurs in many different ways: you will be asked to communicate with various types of texts, with yourself, and with others. These different resources and audiences will require different approaches, and they will also challenge you to examine and at times shift your own perspective.

Communicating with TextsCritical thinking and active learning are relevant to all forms of communication and deepen the way that you engage with resources and audiences. When dealing with texts, critical thinking and active learning are essential to vitalizing the relationship between text and reader. The relationship between text and reader is only a passive one if you treat it as such; accepting an image, quotation, article, or website at face value will provide only superficial knowledge of the source. In order to respond effectively to a problem and produce convincing written work on your own, it is important to carefully examine all of the texts you encounter when working on these types of projects. Instructors often refer to this process as “close�reading”—reading and rereading a text carefully in order to deepen your thinking and develop understanding of it. This process of reading and rereading pertains to all types of texts from images to hybrid and multimodal texts (like websites) to novels; the only element that changes is the type of questions you ask yourself.

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� Read and reread carefully. Do not be afraid to really mark up the text (for electronic resources, consider printing out a copy or using the “Comment” feature in a program such as Microsoft Word). Try to establish an initial overall understanding of the text before you dive into it and begin to deconstruct it.

� Once you establish basic familiarity with the text and the overall argument, identify a passage that continues to attract your attention. Perhaps there is something familiar about the passage, maybe something in it piques your interest, or perhaps you are unsure or have questions about something in the passage. Choose a passage that is interesting to you, and ask yourself some of the following questions:

1. Where does this passage appear within the context of the text (beginning, middle, end)?

2. What does this passage accomplish within the context of the entire text? What purpose does it serve?

3. Does the passage include direct quotations or references to other resources? If so, how are these treated within the passage?

4. Look carefully at the language in the passage. What types of sentences are used (simple, complex, exclamations, fragments, run-ons, questions)? How do these affect the passage as a whole (its tone, meaning, etc.)?

5. Examine particular word choice in the passage. How do certain words impact the meaning and/or effect of particular sentences? How do they impact the passage as a whole?

Close Reading of an Article

If, for example, you are conducting a close reading of a newspaper article, you might employ some of the following techniques:

Performing a close reading of a text involves more than just pointing out what a text “means’; a successful close reading involves identifying what a text “means” based on what the structure and content of a text “does.” Notice how this close reading process moves from general understanding and more global observations to more localized understanding and deep thinking about textual elements. This analytic process vitalizes the relationship between text and reader and allows for more active communication between the two.


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Communicating with OneselfPerhaps the first thing that comes to mind when you read this sub-heading is the idea of hearing voices in your head. Well, this is not very far from the truth; in fact, communication with yourself when you are working through a problem or any independent project is a valuable practice. The trick is to move from merely “hearing” voices to “listening” to and engaging with these voices. Just like when you conduct a close reading of a text in order to deepen your understanding of it, you need to consider questions, doubts, possibilities, ideas, etc. that you communicate to yourself when working through problems and projects. This does not mean that you should fuel insecurity through this process, but rather challenge yourself to reconsider your position, examine an issue from a different angle, or shift your perspective in order to better understand a counter-argument. This process of self-communication will allow you to dig deeper into a text or concept and test your prior and existing knowledge, basic comprehension, and more complex understanding. Practicing these skills and broadening your own perspective through questioning will allow you to communicate more effectively with peers.

Communicating with OthersGroup work always produces some challenges, and these, along with the many benefits of collaboration will be discussed in detail in the next chapter. For now, within the context of our current focus, it is important to consider how the skills practiced through close reading and self-communication may be used to promote productive communication with others. Unquestionably you will be in a small group setting with diverse individuals. Your group will be tackling some difficult and controversial subjects during the problem solving process. While some group members may hold views similar to your own, you should expect that several probably will not. How will you communicate productively regarding controversial subjects about which members feel passionately and intensely?

Obviously one of the main differences between communicating with a text and with another person is that communicating with a person means eliciting a more immediate and often unpredictable response. It is also more difficult to analyze a person’s response without evoking additional feedback (positive and/or negative) from that person. However, several of the techniques discussed in relation to textual analysis and self-communication may be applied to interpersonal relationships as well.

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These questions, like the close reading practices discussed above, move from more global to local questions. Allowing yourself time to better understand a group-mate’s position will allow you to better understand his or her overall argument, necessary reasoning, and investment in the subject. This additional context and deeper understanding, just like with a close reading, will allow you to ask meaningful questions that continue to deepen your own and others’ understanding of the issue. Practicing these techniques with texts and with yourself as you challenge your own thinking on issues about which you feel strongly will allow you to be compassionate, patient, fair, and respectful when dealing with other people.

� Read and reread carefully. With regard to interpersonal relationships, this means not being too quick to respond in a critical (analytical) manner; rather, think carefully about a response or comment and make sure you understand what someone is trying to communicate. (“I did not understand what you meant by X.” “So, is your argument Y?”)

� Seek out adequate clarification. If you do not understand part of a comment, ask the speaker or author for clarification. Make sure that unfamiliar terminology is defined and that examples make sense to you. (“I am not familiar with that term; would you define it for me?” “That example is difficult for me to visualize; would you give me a different example?”)

� Suggest counter-examples and arguments. When you start to ask questions and/or make claims that propose new ideas and challenge someone to consider a position from a new perspective, do so in a way that encourages your listener. (“I understand what you are trying to communicate through that example; however, what if you consider this example?” “I understand your point, but what if…” “How would you teach this topic in a class in a way that would inspire discussion…” “If a student responded with X, how would you reply?”)

Techniques for Textual Analysis


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chapter

your problem-solving group

23

4

Opening�Up�Lines�of�Communication

All of us have had unique experiences with group work. Some of these experiences have been positive and others more challenging; yet, all of these experiences have taught us something about working with others. It is important to bring a positive attitude, along with the knowledge gained through your experiences, to each new group setting. Take the time to get to know the people in your group. Give group members the opportunity to get to know you. Express your expectations for the group. Listen to the expectations of others. Generate group guidelines to which you adhere and develop a plan of action that all group members follow in order to complete the project on time. Understand that circumstances may arise that will cause the group to reconsider its plan of action, and just accept that this is part of the problem solving process. Just like when you draft a paper, you understand that changes will likely occur in strategy, content, and form that will yield new results. Responding to problems follow the same sort of learning process. In fact, problem solving within the context of a composition course not only provides practice in drafting and revision but also often serves as a pre-draft for larger assignments. During the problem solving process you will generate, discuss, and refine ideas with peers; hence, you are exploring ideas that you may revisit in later writing assignments and are also practicing providing and receiving quality feedback from your peers. Refining ideas in order to generate an engaging thesis and practicing productive peer review are both essential activities that contribute to the writing process for more formal assignments.

Your willingness to participate in the group process and commitment to seeing the process through to completion will confirm your dedication to the group. Respect for the contributions of others and awareness of your group mates’ expectations and concerns will help build trust and ensure effective communication. One of the frequently expressed concerns from individuals involved in group work is that others will not fulfill expectations and that certain individuals more dedicated to the process will end up doing more work. Recognize this concern from the outset of the group project, develop guidelines that address it, and establish consequences for those who choose not to meet group expectations. Then approach the


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process from a positive perspective and embrace it as a learning experience. Some wonderful projects and relationships result from effective collaboration.

Involvement versus ParticipationContemplate the difference between involvement and participation. What does it mean to involve yourself in a group project versus participating in a project? Chances are that involvement brings to mind more depth, a deeper commitment to the process, and a more complex relationship with the subject matter. Participation certainly suggests active engagement, but you can participate in an activity without contributing much to the process. Involving yourself in a project suggests more commitment and a deeper connection with the process and outcome.

The differences between involvement and participation are also important to consider in relation to your composition course as a whole as well as to your other college courses and even professional and personal endeavors. Sure, sometimes it is preferable to participate in an activity rather than to involve yourself more intensely; however, being aware that this choice exists and making the conscious decision to participate versus becoming more involved is an important one to consider. When it comes to problem solving, the full involvement of individual group members in the problem solving process is essential to the health of the group and the success of the final project.

Before your group generates guidelines and a plan of action, take a few minutes to brainstorm about the differences between involvement and participation.

� How do your group members define these words?

� What will these words mean within the context of your group and in relation to the specific problem?

Defining these words will help your group members to get to know one another, understand expectations, and begin to draft group guidelines for the problem solving process.

Discussion versus ResponseThe difference between discussion and response is similar to the distinction between involvement and participation; the former in both cases suggests a deeper and more complex relationship with the activity. Regarding discussion and response, a willingness to discuss guidelines, ideas, and strategies with group members and to devote the time necessary to listen to others, work through challenges, contribute, negotiate, and compromise are all part of the discussion process. Response is only part of the process; hence, when you simply respond to a question posed or statement made, you are really only participating in part of a process that calls for more involvement in order to be carried out to completion. Certainly, response

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Your Problem-solving Group

is appropriate during certain stages of the problem solving process, but your willingness to devote the time necessary to engage in discussion with your peers is essential to the entire process.

The issue of productive discussion takes us back to the larger issue of sustaining open lines of communication with your group members. Discussion takes time, attention, patience, and respect. Of course you will not always agree with the contributions of other group members, but thinking about communicating in a clear, comprehensive, and respectful way is necessary to understand the positions of others. As will be discussed in later chapters, the problem solving process and the final write-up does not have to reflect group consensus; in other words, it is not always necessary for your group members to agree on the content presented in the problem write-up. It is, however, necessary for you to express where disagreement or differing opinions exist.

� How will you structure content in order to show how the group worked through a question and agreed to express different viewpoints?

� How will you honor the different positions of group members when necessary and show how the group worked together during the problem solving process?

Establishing Group GuidelinesAs much as we would like it to be the case, productive group work does not occur automatically. Rather, productive group work takes thought and effort. One of the strategies already mentioned is establishing group guidelines. No matter how well you know all or some of your group members, and no matter how much you think establishing group guidelines is unnecessary, taking the time to both discuss and write down guidelines that each group member helps to generate and commits to is absolutely essential. Not only should these group guidelines be posted on a group web page and/or distributed to each group member, a copy should also be given to your instructor so that he or she knows what the group expects of its individual members should any problems arise. It should not be the instructor’s job to detect and defuse group tension; rather, when group members generate guidelines and problems arise (and this is only sometimes the case—potential problems should not be associated automatically with group work), it is up to group members to identify the challenge, attempt to deal with it according to group guidelines, and then if these attempts towards reaching a solution fail, to speak with the instructor about facilitating a group meeting. This is why it is so important to generate guidelines with which the group feels comfortable; take time with these guidelines and use the process to get to know one another, gain knowledge about people’s experiences working in groups, and understand people’s expectations regarding the collaborative process.

Part of establishing open lines of communication involves being honest about group expectations. Again, a good place to start this conversation is by telling a positive story or


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one that includes more challenges of what each group member has experienced in the past within a collaborative work setting. This discussion will tell you a lot about people’s attitudes towards this type of project!

Establishing group guidelines is an extremely important part of the problem solving process. It might seem awkward discussing individual behavior and pet peeves in a group setting (especially when you still do not know your group members very well); but it is essential to do so. One way to start this process is to ask each group member to take a few minutes on his or her own to generate a list of guidelines that they would like the group to consider. Instead of writing these with reference to the group using the plural “we,” generate a list of guidelines for you to follow. Use the first person singular “I” to describe behavior that you expect of yourself as a group member: “I will be on time.” “I will treat other group members with respect.” “I will fulfill my obligations and meet deadlines, etc.” Not only will this process reveal to you expectations for yourself that would typically remain unarticulated, but it will also reveal to your classmates information about you, your experiences, and your approach to learning. Group members will then be able to compare notes, discuss areas of convergence and divergence, clarify uncertainties, ask questions, etc. Once each group member feels comfortable with the various individual lists, then a combined list of guidelines may be generated for the group. Make sure that the group reaches a consensus regarding the guidelines; all individual voices and opinions should be given a space within the larger group context. Remember, there is a difference between guidelines and strategies; with regard to the former, group members should plan to follow these guidelines in order to ensure a productive group work experiences, and with regard to the latter, employ certain strategies towards completing a plan of action. The following are possible examples of group guidelines.

(These guidelines were generated by students in both composition and literature courses):

Group�Guidelines:��Example�#1

1. Show up for class and pre-arranged out-of-class meetings (online or in person).

2. Must notify a group member if unable to comply with #1 prior to time of arranged meeting.

3. Willing to set up out-of-class meetings if needed.

4. Respect others and their opinions.

Group Guidelines Examples

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5. Everyone must post/have required work completed prior to the pre-arranged time established by the group.


1. Attend all class periods and group meetings.

2. Try to stick to all deadlines.

3. Notify the group if you cannot attend a meeting or finish the assigned work by the deadline.

4. Post all notes, research links, and writing [through the class’s e-learning software, e.g. Blackboard]. Come to each meeting with work completed and all posts read.


We agree on what we expect from this project and from each other, and we trust one another and respect one another’s opinions and ideas.

1. We will all meet group set deadlines, unless something “extraordinary” happens. In which case, communication is essential.

2. We will regularly communicate regarding our deadline dates and ideas.

3. We will share responsibility equally.


1. Group members should meet deadlines.

2. All responses should be serious (they should address the problem and questions asked).

3. Everyone is required to participate in in-class discussions.

4. If you are going to miss class:

a. E-mail or post your responses on discussion board.

b. Notify at least one person.

Common Group Expectations

It is easy to recognize common themes among all of these different sets of guidelines. Group members are expected to:


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� treat one another and people’s ideas with respect

� meet deadlines

� make arrangements to communicate outside of class (via email, the group discussion board, or face-to-face)

� notify other group members if an absence is necessary

� come prepared to group meetings

� share responsibility for group work

� remain committed to and engaged in the problem solving process

However, it is also apparent that each group approaches the design and wording of group guidelines in its own way. Again, taking the time to get to know group members and allowing for each person to have input in the process is essential to a positive and productive group work experience.

Developing a Plan of ActionEstablishing group guidelines is the first step in developing a plan of action. Group guidelines establish expectations for the process, propose a general structure, and set a pace for the group to follow. Once every group member understands expectations, then the group as a whole can move forward and develop a more specific plan for working through the specific problem. In almost every case, there is no “right” or “wrong” answer to the problem questions posed. The whole philosophy behind the problem-solving process is that it should challenge you to think as a group and work through complex and inspiring issues. All of the problems in this book are connected with real-world issues that are still current, complex, and remain unsolved. If there were easy “answers” to these issues, then they would not be interesting problems.

With this in mind, consider approaching the problem-solving experience as a process that will not have a definitive outcome by the end of the allotted time for problem-solving; rather, your group should grapple with the problem and see where your thinking leads you:

� What have you discovered through the problem-solving process?

� How did your close examination of the assigned reading inform your understanding of the issues presented within the context of the problem?

� How did your research inform your understanding of the issues?

� What issues/parts of the problem caused your group to struggle the most?

� What do you feel most confident about by the end of the problem-solving process?

� What do you still want and/or need to learn more about?

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Interesting problems make us want to discover more. Stumbling blocks during the problem-solving process reveal issues and ideas that require more thought and research. However, we need to care about issues and in some way feel a personal connection with or investment in them in order to want to commit the time, energy, and resources necessary to work through them. This personal response to an issue, event, person, etc. is the impetus for engagement. Here lies our spark, the bit of energy necessary to propel us towards a solution. Of course, the hard work comes next. It is easier to “care” about something than it is to do something about that which we care; yet, if we care enough, the work seems to become much easier.

Chapter 5 introduces the first problem in such a way as to help you and your group members through the initial problem solving process. The focus of the problem is the changing landscape of education in the wake of the No Child Left Behind law. As college students, education should be a topic that all of you can connect with on some level whether or not you attended private or public schools, grew up in a country other than America, or attended high school one or twenty years ago. Diverse perspectives, presented in conjunction with a common theme, more often than not yield interesting insights!


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chapter

examining the problem

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5

Persuasive Writing

Think about what it means to persuade someone of something. When you desire to convince someone else to do, consider, or act on something with which he or she does not necessarily believe, what are some general strategies and/or approaches that you keep in mind? Perhaps your first response to this question is, “Well, it depends,” and that is absolutely correct. Audience and the general context for a situation are likely the first things that all of us think about when we seek to persuade. How do we convince someone whom we know well of something versus communicating with an acquaintance? Then think of all the other factors that might come into play that impact the way we communicate with various audience members concerning diverse issues. The bottom line is that understanding both your audience and subject is essential for effective, persuasive communication.

Persuasive communication takes time, especially the time necessary to know your subject. Before you can approach that individual you know well, a stranger, or a general audience about a subject, you need to take the time necessary to think about, analyze, and comprehend your subject. Personal passion and interest are important and should be expressed, but you need to consider how and when the personal should be brought into a persuasive argument. Too much passion can lead to an argument considered to be one-sided or even categorized as a rant, and it is very easy for a persuasive argument that relies on the personal to be countered with examples that simply rely on personal preference. For example, if you claim that a law should be changed because you “do not like” it, someone could counter your argument by simply stating that the law should remain in its current form because the speaker “likes” it. While there are many different types of “fallacies” that can be committed when people try to construct arguments, as you commence your thinking about effective argumentation, consider relevant starting points. Not only do you need an idea of the probable audience for your argument, you also need to know your subject.


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� Have you conducted preliminary research?

� Have you thought about potential counter-arguments that might be used to refute yours?

� Have you analyzed your subject and your own position in relation to it?

� Have you thought critically about your argument?

Knowing your audience, understanding your subject, and considering your own position on the subject are all critical for beginning to establish a solid argument and eventually presenting it to an audience. A solid argument begins with knowing “what” you want to persuade someone of and understanding “why” the subject is important. Just knowing “what” you want to discuss and “how” you feel about the subject are not enough; a persuasive argument equals “what” (your subject) plus “why” (why this subject is important). In other words:

ARGUMENT�=�WHAT�+�WHY

Without the “why,” without understanding why a subject is important and why an audience should engage with it, an argument does not exist. When the “what” stands alone, the author is presenting a “verifiable report.” The “what” signifies a subject, but without a position attached to this subject, without some original reflection and the desire to persuade your audience of a position, then the audience can simply conduct some research of its own and “verify” your subject. Persuading your audience of an original position takes careful critical thinking, consideration of audience, and understanding of your subject.

The Problem-Solving Process

The group problem-solving process provides practice generating persuasive ideas and presenting them to an audience. The process requires each group member to work with other people as the entire group grapples with complex and controversial subjects that elicit personal and often passionate responses from individual group members. The collaborative context provides an automatic audience for the presentation of ideas, and all of the problems require you to take stock of what you know first before moving on to careful analysis of the problem itself, readings for the problem, and additional research. As the context for understanding the problem expands, you will have the opportunity to reexamine your initial response to the subject through the lens of this expanding context. Whether or not your initial position changes is not what is most important; rather, what is most essential is reaching a deeper and more complex understanding of the subject and your initial response to it. Consider the problem solving process as part of a writing process; problem solving provides you with the opportunity to explore ideas, form arguments, conduct research, experiment with evidence and ways of supporting your argument, and gain feedback from a diverse audience of peers. All of this will provide you with practice, experience, information, and ideas for when it becomes time for you to write more formal papers in this class, throughout your educational career, and into your personal and professional life.

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Examining the Problem

Critical Reading: Problem and Supporting MaterialsAfter taking the time to communicate with your group members, get to know them better, establish group guidelines, and develop an action plan, the next step is to make sure that the group understands the problem. All of the problems in this text are complex and will take several class periods to work through. It is important that the group members all have a solid understanding of what the problem entails before getting too involved in the problem solving process.

Understanding the ProblemThink back for a moment to Chapter 3 and the discussion of close reading (see page 19). As you begin the problem solving process consider the major strategies for close reading:

� Read and reread carefully

� Mark up the text

� Locate parts of the text that are particularly interesting to you and articulate why you selected them

� Locate parts of the text that are particularly difficult for you to understand and/or about which you have questions

� Begin to research areas of uncertainty

All of these strategies will help with the problem solving process. Before the group even develops an action plan, it is essential that all group members have a clear understanding of the problem itself. For example, when considering “The Problem of Education,” it is important to read through the entire problem first. What is this problem about? Is it necessary at this point to have completed the readings for the problem by Jonathan Kozol and Derrick Jensen and to have reviewed carefully the websites and resources signaled through URLs throughout the problem? At this point in the process, no; such in-depth examination and understanding of the readings is unnecessary. However, knowing that these readings are required, familiarizing yourself with the length of these documents, taking a quick look at the electronic resources, and understanding how the readings work within the context of the problem are all important. Group members need to understand how much reading and research are required in order to develop a practical and efficient plan to approach the problem solving process. Hence, the first step to understanding the problem means conducting an overview and gaining a general understanding.

Identifying Problem RequirementsAfter taking time to read through the problem and making sure that all of the group members are familiar with it, it is important to take a more specific look at the problem requirements. These requirements will vary based on the type of class and the specific goals and objectives for


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the course. Make sure that you understand what your instructor requires regarding problem write-up, format, drafting, discussion, etc. The following is a set of problem requirements. Keep in mind that these requirements do not correspond with any specific problem in this text; rather, they are included to serve as an example and to give you practice reading closely and identifying pertinent details.

The problems posed in this course are meant to help you to think carefully about the readings for the problem, to conduct research and use it effectively in your writing, to collaborate with peers, and to practice your learning and teaching skills. This means that the questions that comprise a problem are more complex than questions completed for homework, and they should be approached more carefully and delved into in greater detail. One of the objectives that the problems should fulfill is for students to introduce additional information about the topic under discussion through their work on the problem. You should apply your basic knowledge of the problem topics to your responses, but you should also stretch your thinking and be open to new ideas, possibilities, and likely complexities discovered through the problem-solving process.

You will be working in groups in order to respond to the problems. As a group, your task is to respond to all of its aspects. In order to complete the problem, you will produce one problem write-up for the group.

Please supply both a hardcopy and an electronic version of your group response. Your document should be saved in Microsoft Word. If you do not have access to Microsoft Word, you should save the documents in rtf.

Your document should be typed, double-spaced, and use the identified documentation format (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.). If you have questions about the identified documentation format, consult your handbook or ask questions of other group members and/or your instructor.

Success on these problems and in this course as a whole depends upon a general willingness to collaborate as an entire class in order to produce the best and most productive learning experience for all involved. This means that you should respect all members of your working group and encourage general participation. Intolerance of any group member is unacceptable. Furthermore, equal involvement by all group members on the various projects that are undertaken within a collaborative context is expected. In other words, all group members should be

Example: Problem Requirements

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After reading through these problem requirements, think carefully about what is being asked of you:

� Paragraph 1: Emphasizes why the problem is constructed the way that it is and what the instructor would like for students to learn through their work on the problem.

� Paragraph 2: Reminds students that they will be working as part of a group.

� Paragraphs 3 and 4: Present general formatting guidelines and details about submitting the problem write-up for a grade.

� Paragraph 5: Foregrounds important information regarding group behavior.

These final paragraphs are especially relevant as a reminder for ensuring productive group work. They emphasize the importance of tolerance, responsible group work behavior, and full involvement in the problem-solving process. Make sure that you read carefully the guidelines provided by your instructor so you know what is expected of the group, how to initiate and sustain productive group work, how your work should be presented, and how the final project will be assessed.

Recognizing StagesAfter reviewing the problem and gaining a general overview, reread the problem more carefully. What are the major stages of the problem? What parts comprise the whole, and how do these parts build on one another?

Take “The Problem of Education” (page 38) as an example. The first part of the problem, following mention of the required elements, is the general introduction to the problem. While it might be tempting to simply skim this section because it does not include prompts to which you need to respond directly, don’t; instead, slow down and read this section carefully. The introduction provides pertinent information to help you understand the problem and work through it efficiently and effectively. The introduction to “The Problem of Education” provides some background information regarding the No Child Left Behind law. It includes a link to the official U.S. Department of Education website to help you to understand this very complicated legislation and revisions that have begun to be made to it under the new administration. For many of you, the No Child Left Behind law is an extremely familiar and recent influence on your life. If you have attended public schools for the decade, then it is likely

involved with every stage of specific projects. This means that if a group is working on a problem that involves multiple stages, each group member should be involved with every stage of the problem. It is unacceptable to assign certain group members specific stages of the problem to complete; rather, all members of the group should be involved with every stage of the problem.


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that you have been touched by this legislation. For some of you, the effects of high stakes testing may have been more overt and lasting than for others; however, it is unlikely unless you have studied this legislation that many of you understand the power and complexity of this law. The link to the website will help to develop and deepen your understanding.

In addition to providing a link to an important resource, the introduction also provides some information regarding the required readings for this problem. While the brief summaries of the readings do not provide a lot of detailed information, they do provide entry points into the selections and give a broad sense of how they might be relevant to the problem-solving process.

The final paragraph of the problem introduction reminds you of the important things to keep in mind as you engage in the problem-solving process—the person, the readings, and basic research. It also reminds you to consider the importance of power as you start to grapple with some of the specific prompts.

Clarifying TerminologyPart of reading closely means identifying terminology that you do not necessarily understand. As you read through the problem, underline words or sentences that are unclear and/or questions that you have. You may have a question regarding definition, or you may just be unsure about how to respond to a specific prompt. For example, without reflection or research time, how do you begin to answer the questions posted at the end of the introduction: “What happens when people in power make decisions about education? What happens to students, teachers, and parents in the face of this power? Who is empowered and disempowered within such a context?” You may have an initial response to these questions, but what will happen to this personal response once it is informed by reflection and research? What will happen to your initial responses once the context is broadened?

You may have questions about ideas, topics, concepts, etc. mentioned in the problem—the No Child Left Behind law is named, and a link is provided for more information, but you probably have questions about this legislation at this point—and you may have questions about specific words and how they are used in the problem. Words like “accountability,” “curricula,” and “socio-economic standing,” as they appear in the introduction to “The Problem of Education,” might inspire some questions. You may have a vague sense of what these words mean, but again consider the possibilities that further research will yield; when you think about these words within the context of education and specifically No Child Left Behind, what do they signify?

The entire process of “understanding the problem” as presented in this chapter is an exercise in close reading that is essential to the problem-solving process. The chapter begins with the act of conducting a general overview and reaching an initial understanding of the complete problem and then narrowing this focus and beginning to isolate details as you move from

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“understanding the problem,” to “identifying problem requirements,” to “recognizing specific stages” of the problem, to “clarifying terminology.” If you think of this close reading process as one that “funnels” your comprehension and moves you from a broad to a more focused understanding, then you are ready to think about tackling the problem prompts and presenting your discoveries in a coherent and comprehensive write-up.


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Problem #1The Problem of Education

Readings:�Jonathan Kozol, The Shame of the Nation. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2005.

Chapter 5: “The Road to Rome,” pp. 109-134.

Derrick Jensen, Walking on Water. White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2004: From “How to Not Teach,” pp. 18-21.

The Problem

Today, public education in America, especially within the kindergarten through grade twelve sector, functions very differently than it did just five years ago. In 2001, the Bush Administration issued the call for better school accountability with regard to the preparation of all children through the No Child Left Behind law (NCLB). Under President Bush, this law was described as embodying four principles: “stronger accountability for results, expanded flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents, and an emphasis on teaching methods that have been proven to work” (http://www.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/factsheet.html). But as many students, teachers, parents, legislators, researchers, etc. will tell you, while a focus on ways of improving education is important and admirable, the actual impact of NCLB on education has been quite problematic. NCLB has led to funding problems for schools, unrealistic expectations regarding teacher qualifications, the over-simplification of curricula in order to “teach to the test” and yield expected results, poor preparation for higher education, and the privileging of certain students based on socio-economic standing and race. While school reform policies are beginning to change under President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, NCLB policies are still in place and their effects present during this long transitional period. Furthermore, ARRA brings with it a collection of new challenges.

In his book, The Shame of the Nation, Jonathan Kozol addresses many of these problems and focuses on the privileging of certain students based on socio-economic standing and race. He questions the impact of NCLB on students who do not have a choice about where to attend school, the pressures on these schools to produce high test scores, and the lack of resources available to institutions that need them most. Derrick Jensen, author of Walking on Water, while not examining NCLB directly, does reflect on the challenges that he faces as a college professor as he explores innovative ways to engage his students in the college classroom, many of whom are the product of NCLB and/or uninspired teachers and college professors.

For this problem you will use your own educational history, selections from both Kozol’s and Jensen’s books, and basic research on NCLB to consider the impact of “power” on

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education. What happens when people in power make decisions about education? What happens to students, teachers, and parents in the face of this power? Who is empowered and disempowered within such a context?

Part I: Your Educational HistoryThe members of your problem-solving group will likely have had different experiences when it comes to education. Probably, many of you have come from different areas of the state, country, or world. Some of you may have attended a public school, a private school, a charter school, or been home-schooled. Some members of your group may be “traditional” students—students who just graduated from high school—and others may be “non-traditional” students—students who have been away from school for a period of time. Your different experiences matter within the context of this problem.

1. Free-write for at least ten minutes about your educational history. What comes to mind about your experiences as a student in the kindergarten through grade twelve sector? Share your responses with the group.

1a. Free-write for another ten minutes about your educational history and evidence of the influence of power on your experience. When you think about your educational history, where do you see evidence of power at work? Think about the concept of power as anything that controls and directs action. Share your responses with the group.

1b. As a group, come up with a list of sub-headings for the general heading “Power and Education” based on the material generated during your free-writes. Some examples of possible sub-headings include: teaching methods, teachers, administrators, the school board, etc.; your group list will vary based on the experiences of your group members. Use these sub-headings to organize your individual free-writes and to identify patterns.

1c. Based on your list and the patterns identified, write a group statement about the role of power in education. What is the role of power in education, how does power function within education, and why is it important to think about the role of power in education?

Part II: Adding ContextBefore reading Kozol, visit two websites that address NCLB from different perspectives: The U.S. Department of Education (http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/states/index.html#nclb) and Rethinking Schools Online (http://www.rethinkingschools.org/).


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2. What did you learn about NCLB from reading material from these websites? Include at least two direct references to each website in your response.

2a. From this rather quick introduction to NCLB, what do you think are the major potential strengths and weaknesses of this law (identify at least three examples of each in your response)?

2b. Reread your responses to questions 2 and 2a; where do you see evidence of power influencing and/or resulting from this law with respect to education?

Read Chapter 5, “The Road to Rome,” from Jonathan Kozol’s The Shame of the Nation. Pay attention to the connection between power and education in this chapter expressed through both direct�statements and indirect�references. While direct statements most often rely on content to convey their message, indirect statements include such elements as word choice, voice, and perspective to suggest a point or imply a connection.

3. What argument does Kozol present in this chapter? Summarize this argument in your own words and select at least two specific quotations to support your summary.

3a. What does power have to do with Kozol’s argument about education? Identify at least two direct statements that Kozol makes about the relationship between power and education and use them to clarify your response to this question.

3b. Identify at least two indirect statements that Kozol makes about the relationship between power and education and use them to clarify and/or complicate your response to question 2a. Quote and conduct a close-reading of the statements so that your reader understands how you are interpreting them and how you view these statements as supporting Kozol’s argument about education.

3c. Kozol writes:

The scores go up, the scores go down, as new officials and new methods come and go…; but the stripping away of cultural integrity and texture from the intellectual experience of children, denial of delight in what is beautiful and stimulating for its own sake and not for its acquisitional equivalents, is a perennial calamity. (119-120)

Return to your responses to Part I and Part II, questions 2 through 2b. How accurate is Kozol’s statement in light of your own experiences in education? Be specific in your response and use material from your responses to Part I and Part II, question 2 as evidence to support your claim. Do Kozol’s statement and his overall argument regarding education in the wake of NCLB seem fair and accurate in light of your general research on the subject? Again, be specific in your response and use material from your responses to Part II, questions 2 through 2b as evidence to support your claim.

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Part III: Responding to the ProblemRead the selection from Derrick Jensen’s Walking on Water.

4. What is your initial response to Jensen’s approach to teaching as described in this section? In your opinion, is Jensen’s approach conventional or unconventional?

4a. Does Jensen’s approach to teaching appear to be in response to some of the issues connected with power and education in the wake of NCLB as discussed throughout this problem? Why or why not?

4b. Do you think Jensen’s approach to teaching is a necessary and/or potentially productive response to some of the issues connected with power and education? Why or why not?

4c. If you were a professor and teaching a college writing course to first-year college students, how would you introduce yourself and the course? Just as Jensen does, write your response in the voice of a professor on the first day of class. After you have written this introduction, explain the narrative choices you made during your writing process.


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chapter

the problem-solving process

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6

Critical�Thinking

Problem solving for any discipline, professional context, or personal circumstance takes work. Certainly we are all capable of coming up with a quick response, perhaps even a quick “fix” in certain problem solving situations, but what happens when we do the work necessary to make a more lasting impression or propose a more permanent solution? In most situations, this work is not easy; it requires us to survey the situation, think through it, ask questions, conduct research, and then start working towards a solution. Often during this process we will encounter challenges; our efforts will be derailed in some way, and we will be required to backtrack, rethink strategy, restructure our plan, and revise our approach. We may need to do things over again, and this means putting more thought and time into the process.

It is this process that is most important to the problem solving experience. The group will reach a stopping point; it will be required to produce a problem write-up and turn in this product to the instructor. However, a product turned in for a grade does not mean that the problem solving process is complete; remember the philosophy presented earlier: “A paper is never done, it is only due.” And, in addition to the problem-solving process being open-ended, more likely than not, each group in the class will turn in very different write-ups. This is due to the fact that problem-based learning is not meant to lead students to a definite and identical conclusion; rather, problem-based learning emphasizes the process of discovery. There are no “right” or “wrong” answers to the problem prompts; instead, you and your group members should feel challenged to follow your interests and passions during this process in order to reach a deeper and more complete understanding of the subject and to begin to find some ways to respond to the challenges presented. More important than any other part of this process is engaged critical thinking. You and your group members need to take the time necessary to think through difficult parts of the problem. It is this thinking, combined with careful critical examination of the problem itself and the supporting readings that will allow you and group-mates to produce an engaging and effective problem write-up. Strong writing, both within the group context and on an individual level, depends upon critical reading and thinking.


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Active Learning

What are the differences between being an active and a passive learner? What does it mean to act in response to your learning versus simply receiving that which is presented to you? Being an active�learner is not always easy. Certain learning environments promote and support active learning more than others. Take, for example, a traditional lecture class. In this type of classroom setting, the lecturer (even the most dynamic ones) tends to deliver information to the students who are situated as passive receivers. This type of educational exchange, at least within the context of the classroom, promotes passive learning. Great lecturers may inspire students to seek out knowledge on their own beyond the walls of the classroom, and if students do so, then they engage in active learning.

Now this is somewhat of a generalization regarding passive�learning. Certainly not all lecture-based courses promote passive learning; there are many dynamic lecturers who manage to include interactive opportunities for students However, based purely on the structure of lecture-based courses, they tend to be more passive than active in terms of exchanges between the instructor and students.

Consider, then, the difference between a lecture-based� classroom and a problem-based�learning�classroom. Lecture is a form of delivery; information is delivered to an audience of listeners. Problem-based learning is a form of discovery; problems are posed, and learners actively work towards some form of a solution. In a problem-based learning classroom, instructors serve as facilitators and guides during the problem-solving process; they will help you through challenges, but they will not escort you along the path towards a solution. This is why the problem-solving process depends upon your commitment and the commitment of the other members of the group. The problem will not solve itself; you must collaborate as a group and actively engage in the problem-solving process if you want the learning experience to be positive and productive.

Communication: “What do you know?”A helpful strategy when faced with any sort of problem is to think about what you already know. What knowledge do you possess that will help you to begin to approach the problem? Of course, this knowledge will be challenged during the problem-solving process as more information is introduced and context is broadened. In other words, as you begin to learn more about the issues associated with the problem, your own knowledge will be filtered through a new perspective informed by this broadened context. As a result, your knowledge will be reinforced and challenged at times, and more likely than not, will be altered by the end of the problem-solving process.

All of the problems included in this text ask you to begin based on what you know. Return to “The Problem of Education” (see page 38). After reading the introduction carefully, read through Part I: “Your Educational History.” This section acknowledges that each member

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The Problem-solving Process

of the problem-solving group possesses his or her own unique perspective. Sharing this perspective with the group and considering what each member brings to the problem-solving process is essential for a productive experience. Considering these perspectives will not only initiate the actual problem-solving process, it will also serve as a way to open up lines of communication. As discussed in Chapter 4, taking the time to get to know your group-mates is essential. Once you commence problem-solving, initial introductions and the production of group guidelines and initial strategies will have taken place; however, beginning the problem-solving process by discovering where your group-mates are in terms of their experience and knowledge possessed that will aid in the problem-solving process is important.

Discussing�Ideas

If you carefully review Part I of “The Problem of Education” (see page 38), you will see how the problem asks you to begin by writing independently about your educational history. Then you are asked to share these responses with your group members. After hearing from other students, you will begin to broaden your context of knowledge regarding education and inform your thinking about your personal history as a student. This process of broadening context will begin to become apparent as you move on in the problem and free-write once again about how your educational history reveals evidence of the influence of power. Yes, you will still be thinking about your own educational experience from a personal perspective, but following conversations with other group members about their experiences, you may be aware of similarities and differences that inform and influence your thinking about your educational history. Hence, as you begin to tackle the issue of power and education, your frame of reference will be broadened and your thinking deepened.

Part I, Your Educational History (see page 39), also requires that you consider all of the responses contributed by individual group members, organize these, label them, and write a group statement about the role of power in education. Hence, you are still relying upon what you know to make your individual contribution to this group collection, but you must combine this individual knowledge with the group contributions, discuss these contributions, and reach a group understanding of the material in order to write a group statement.

Pooling resources, organizing material, and generating a group statement do not necessarily signify that all of your group members agree with one another and have modified individual views of power and education to fit the group’s vision. Problem-solving is not about reaching an agreement; it is not about “settling” in order to please the group. Rather, the process is about learning how to collaborate with others in order to enhance your learning experience, engage in a learning process that is relevant to real-life experiences, and to inform your own understanding of the subject. It is quite possible that at times one or several group members will not agree with the rest of the group; the challenge is working through these experiences and generating responses to the prompts that best represent the group’s position and discoveries. As a group, you will need to strategize about how to represent multiple


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voices and perspectives in a single group write-up. How will you give space to individual voices and perspectives while accurately representing the knowledge and insights of the group as a whole?

Strategizing

The initial discussions stemming from work on the first part of any problem will reveal the group’s knowledge, work that needs to be done, and perspectives that need to be validated and given voice in the problem write-up. Although group members will have spent some time getting to know one another, discussing expectations for group work and the problem-solving process in general terms, once the group begins work on a new problem, oftentimes general guidelines and strategies will need to be revisited and/or modified in order to meet the demands of the specific problem-solving task at hand.

It is impossible to anticipate the needs that may arise when group members begin work on a specific problem. Even more than personal work habits, individual perspectives regarding specific areas of knowledge might influence the way that the problem-solving process unfolds. Depending on the subject of study, some group members may have a different interest in an area of the subject than others. There is the possibility that some group members may have read one or several of the supporting readings before and be interested in conducting additional research and broadening the context for the problem. It is important to take a general inventory of the problem and its requirements as well as gain a clear understanding of what group members already know about and/or are interested in concerning the subject before forging ahead with the problem-solving process.

Again, take “The Problem of Education.” You will see that Part II, Adding Context (see page 39) asks you to broaden your knowledge of the topic of the influence of power on education by reviewing two online resources with different views of the No Child Left Behind law, one through the U.S. Department of Education and another through Rethinking Schools Online. You will also read “The Road to Rome,” from Jonathan Kozol’s The Shame of the Nation. Perhaps some group members have first hand knowledge of NCLB having gone through a public school system in the United States after this legislation was passed. Maybe others know people who teach in the public school system who either support or oppose NCLB for various reasons. It may be possible that some group members plan to be public school teachers. Perhaps group members have attended schools in areas or similar areas to what Kozol examines and have had similar and/or different experiences. Likewise, it is possible that some group members have had teachers similar to those whom Kozol describes in his chapter or to Derrick Jensen whose work about education and teaching is introduced in Part III, “Responding to the Problem” (see page 41). It is important to collect information about what group members know before charging ahead with the problem. It is also helpful to discuss individual interests; there may be a group member who is particularly interested in a certain aspect of the problem. For example, if there is a future educator in your group, that

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person may have a strong interest in exploring Kozol’s claims as they relate to the public school classroom and/or Jensen’s alternative instructional methods for appealing to students. While all group members should contribute to all parts of the problem, it is perfectly acceptable to assign group members to “lead” roles for certain parts of the problem based on interest and/or expertise.

Exploration: “What do you need to know?”While it is quite possible that one or several group members have prior knowledge regarding certain areas of the problem, it is also possible that one or several group members have very little knowledge of the issue under discussion. Hence, it is important to determine what you need to know in order to progress. Take stock of what your group knows and then locate the areas of need within this collective knowledge: What’s missing? What do you need to know? What questions do you have?

Analyzing�Information

You have already read quite a bit about the importance of close reading. The reason that it is so important is because language can be tricky—words do not always signify the same things for all readers depending upon the history that the individual reader brings to the text; language may be complex and include various levels of meaning; language, especially within a problem-solving context, may be intentionally vague and require you to think through possible interpretative strategies; and language appearing within specific contexts—a problem, textbook, specific environment (e.g. classroom), etc.—may need to be considered in relation to the conditions that surround it. Again, analyzing information—reading closely—is a form of active learning that requires you to take ownership of your learning. What do you desire to gain through the problem-solving process? What will you contribute to the process?

The importance of analyzing information (reading closely) can be seen in looking at “The Problem of Education,” Part II, “Adding Context” (see page 39). This section introduces assigned readings to help you to place prior knowledge about the subject of power and education within a larger context. Just glancing at the two websites and skimming quickly will not provide you with enough information to gain an adequate understanding of the legislation itself and what people have identified as the major strengths and weaknesses. This part of the problem begins by asking you a rather general question about what you learned about NCLB by reading the material posted on these websites. As you read on, you will see that you are asked to address major strengths and weaknesses of this legislation. Without a solid understanding of the legislation itself, it will be difficult to identify these and begin to understand the role that power plays in public education.

Understanding the complexity of the questions will help the group to come up with a research plan for the problem. What is your general understanding of the issue under discussion, what seem to be the major elements of this issue, and what areas need to be researched further in order to respond to the problem prompts most productively?


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Researching�Possibilities

Problem-based learning invites you to participate in the process of discovery it promotes. As you begin to discover more about NCLB and what supporters and critics have to say about it, you will encounter issues that interest you and are connected with the problem-solving process. Take advantage of the time devoted to the problem-solving process to research these areas of interest. Use the resources assigned as reading for the problem as your starting point, and once you identify the issues most interesting to you, then deepen your understanding through research.

As noted earlier, there is no definite endpoint to the problem-solving process and no pre-determined solution; rather, the process is designed to encourage you to make discoveries through group discussion, individual and collaborative thinking, writing, and research opportunities. Even if your research does not yield information that is immediately usable within the context of the problem write-up, it may still aid in the problem-solving process and be helpful for individual writing tasks. Hence, it is important to take your time with research; allow the research process to help inform your thinking about the problem prompt, aid in revising research questions, and shape your response.

A simple glance at the U.S. Department of Education’s webpage regarding NCLB reveals the complexity of this legislation and the changes that have begun to occur under the new administration. New developments happen on a regular basis and electronic resources are updated almost daily. Below are a few, recently captured screenshots from the U.S. Department of Education’s website. The first screenshot provides an overview of NCLB. Even as the new administration is working on changes to this legislation, there is still an argument being made to support accountability. If you click on the “Proven Methods” link on the left menu bar, you will see a number of links provided to help you identify and understand “proven methods” in the classroom in terms of improving student performance on high-stakes tests. A look at the second screenshot may cause you to question the focus on “reading,” “math achievement,” “science achievement,” and “English fluency.” You might question the use of the word “achievement” and speculate as to how this word is defined and applied within this context. You might also focus on the link “Good Teachers” and speculate about the use of the word “good” to describe teachers and their performance. You may want to conduct additional research on this issue of teaching, especially in light of your reading of the work of Jonathan Kozol and Derrick Jensen. If you click on the “ED Recovery Act” link located on the right hand side of the screen, how does the information provided in the third screenshot contribute to your thinking about current legislation and changes that might begin to occur? On the left-hand side of the screen is a link to “Higher Education.” How might these issues discussed within the context of K through 12 education raise questions about higher education as suggested in the fourth screenshot? How might this inform your thinking about the problem, especially within the context of your own education? How might this lead to a future paper topic dealing with the influence of outside power structures on public higher education?

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1 http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml

2 http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml


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4 http://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/guid/edpicks.jhtml

3 http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/index.html

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Taking�Chances

Because there is no pre-determined solution to the problem, you should not be worried about the consequences of taking chances with both the research and problem write-up. Certainly this does not mean that “anything goes”; rather, it means that you should not be afraid to try something new when it comes to working through the problem. If you take the time to understand it and strategize adequately regarding an action plan, then taking risks when it comes to exploring research possibilities and finding the best way to express your ideas so as to capture the group experience and individual and shared perspectives should end up being rewarding. Close reading, a respectful collaborative work setting, and time for research should yield interesting insights, deep thinking, and creative expression.

Understanding: What have you learned and what more do you need to learn?”The problem-solving process often becomes very engaging, and group members become very interested in different parts of the problem. The process of discovery often leads group members in various directions, and it then becomes necessary to regroup and share information. More often than not, the group will discover that it has collected a plethora of information that while extremely engaging, is not always directly applicable to the problem write-up. Usually, information will need to be pared down as the group makes decisions regarding the direction of the response. Once information is streamlined, then potential holes may open up and new questions present themselves as the group begins to decide on a critical position with regard to the subject matter and organizational structure for its response.

Synthesizing�Information

The guidelines and strategy generated by the group will determine how you approach the synthesizing of information. Some group members may have worked together on various parts of the problem, you may have worked on all of the parts of the problem together as a group, or perhaps individuals were assigned specific tasks and areas to focus on in depth. The group strategy prior to specific engagement with the prompts will determine largely how the synthesizing of information will work. Some strategies may yield more collected information and others less; you may find yourselves with diverse findings, and/or that the approach to data collection has been too narrow. It is difficult to know what sort of information will result from certain strategies, but what is guaranteed is that more work will need to be done once the group comes together to reflect on how to synthesize information and move forward with the problem write-up.

Just like with formal writing assignments and tasks that you complete for this course and others throughout your educational career, you will need to think about revision. When your group convenes to discuss synthesizing information, you all will need to assess what


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you have collected; the direction in which you want to go in terms of a main position, focus, and structure; what information you want to keep and throw out; and what more you need. Research is meant to inform our thinking, and the shape that projects take is often determined by research. The questions that we begin with—our research questions—are often complicated and eventually refined through research; critically reading and thinking about information helps us to really decide what we want to study and how we will go about presenting our discoveries to our audience.

The same thing will happen through the problem-solving process because research is such an important part of what you will be doing during this process. Instead of one person conducting all of the research on the subject, all of your group members will be collecting information. You will need to remind yourselves of your group guidelines, remain true to these, and strategize regarding the direction of your problem write-up and the piece of writing that you will submit at the end of the process.

Identifying�and�Filling�in�Holes

As discussed earlier, your group will come together with a lot of information. But collecting a lot of information does not mean that what follows is an easy process. It is difficult to determine what is useful information to any writing process for two reasons: One, we do not always know right away in which direction we are headed in terms of our presentation of the subject and two, researching is hard work, and we are often reluctant to throw out information (or even save it for later) when we have worked so diligently to collect it. But this is part of the process; as a group, you need to look carefully at the information you have in front of you and determine the direction for the problem write-up. Once you have determined the direction, take a careful look at what you have and what you need, and then proceed with a more refined research plan.

If your group finds that it needs to change its approach to the problem and/or direction for the problem write-up, do not panic; again, this is part of any research and writing process. Your group will need to make choices and meet the submission deadline, but unlike a more traditional, formal writing assignment, a problem write-up, because of the nature of the process, permits more flexibility. Certainly the group will need to select a definite direction for the problem write-up; provide adequate structure, a clear organizational strategy, and ample evidence; and use proper documentation techniques; however, representing diversity in terms of group member input and perspective and expressing successes and challenges in terms of the project itself is acceptable in the write-up. Again, this process is about discovery, and reflecting on the process itself is a relevant part of this experience. Hence, if you encounter a stumbling block in terms of research such as accessing the information you need, negotiating among diverse group opinions, making a choice regarding the write-up itself, etc. express this within the context of the problem write-up. Keep in mind that these types of reflections should not be used to cover up for poor planning or inadequate research, but if expressed

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within the context of a complete problem write-up that addresses all problem prompts and fulfills the objectives of the assignment, then such comments can enhance the problem write-up and help your group plan for future projects.

Positioning: “What do you believe, and how will you present your argument?While each problem in this text is comprised of a series of prompts connected with a common subject, it is important to examine all of these and the material collected in order to generate a general argument that will help to structure your problem write-up. Just like an argumentative paper that foregrounds a main arguable thesis and then backs up this thesis with well-constructed claims and ample evidence, a problem write-up should be focused and present a unified response to the problem posed. As discussed earlier, a unified response does not imply group consensus; just like in an argumentative paper, there can be exceptions to an argument and counter-arguments are often acknowledged. However, an argument is most convincing when it is focused and consistent; the group should come up with an overall argument that it intends to develop and support over the course of the problem write-up.

Forming�a�Position�and�Taking�a�Stance

The process of working through the problem prompts, reading critically, researching carefully, and coming together with group members to synthesize information, streamline data, and locate areas for further research will help you to begin to form a position that will guide your problem write-up. Each problem is structured to help you form a position. Once again, refer to “The Problem of Education” (see page 38) as an example. As you know, this problem discusses the effects of various forms of power on public education. The NCLB law is the main lens through which this issue is examined in this problem, but this lens may be narrowed or widened depending upon the direction of your research and the position adopted by your group. Each problem in the text is divided into various sections, and the prompts in each section help you to collect evidence regarding different elements of the topic. As you work through the prompts, you will begin to form claims and gather evidence that will help you to support your overall position. If you look at “The Problem of Education,” you will see that the evidence that you will be gathering to support claims and a larger argument will be a combination of personal information, facts, quotations, research, and analysis of reading and collected material. You will be asked to take stock of what you already know, analyze material that is provided to you, collect additional research, synthesize material, form a position, and adopt a strong stance with regard to the topic.

It will be the knowledge gained through the process, used to refine what you already know, that will allow you to move from forming a position on the topic to taking a strong stance in relation to it. Forming a position requires some refining through the synthesis of material discussed in conjunction with locating and filling in research gaps. “Forming a position”


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suggests that revision and refinement are still underway as you work through the later stages of thinking and research. Forming a position will require you to draft in writing so as to be able to trace your thinking and make decisions regarding next steps. When it comes time for you to “take a stance” in relation to your topic, you should have completed most of the research and feel confident enough about your refined knowledge of the subject to assert and support your position. When you take a stance, you are prepared to convince your audience of something; you are able to anticipate potential counter-arguments and feel secure enough with your knowledge of the topic to address these positions, acknowledge concerns, and yet stand strong in terms of your argument.

Engaging�an�Audience

Taking a stance with regard to any argument—written or spoken—means that you need to think about your audience and how you will present this argument to it. Thinking about audience helps a writer make decisions regarding form, content, voice, tone, etc. The degree of formality and informality of a piece also depends upon audience, as does the level of creativity and divergence from the use of more traditional genres and presentational structures and techniques. Think about the types of choices that you make when you know your audience well versus when you do not. When you know your audience, you also know your frame of reference. Your audience is not necessarily smaller, and it is not always easier to present an argument to people you know than people you do not know; however, when you know your audience well, it is often easier to anticipate the type of response that your argument will receive. The ability to anticipate at least a general response to an argument makes it easier to know how to present the argument.

Take for instance the example of writing a letter to your boss requesting a salary increase. You have been working for the company for several years, understand the work environment, know the people with whom you work, and are familiar with the conditions that warrant a raise. While the letter in this particular instance will likely be formal—you probably will not take many risks with form and content as you try to convince your boss that you deserve a raise—it will also be familiar in the sense that you know your audience and understand the context that surrounds this request. You will have a sense of what type of appeal—emotional, ethical, logical—may work best with your audience, and you will possess and be able to make informed decisions about the type of evidence that you will use to back up claims in support of your argument for a raise. You are an “insider” in terms of your position within the company, and even if the company is rather large, you still possess knowledge that someone applying to the company would not.

Consider how a letter that you might write requesting employment with this company would differ from a letter written for a salary increase. In the case of the former, you are an “outsider” trying to get in and probably know less about the company than if you were an employee with the company for a number of years and requesting a raise. Certainly the letter

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would be formal, likely following the recommended structure for a letter of application, and present a clear and concise argument in support of your credentials as a job candidate. Quite likely, you will have researched the company and know about its mission, history, and basic demographics. You will have studied the job description, and may even know people who already work for the company who could give you some advice and provide some helpful information regarding the application process. All of this information will influence the way that you approach this formal letter that will showcase your qualifications and strengths as a job candidate and argue in favor of your selection for the position. Yet, no matter how much you know, in most cases, most of us will play it safe when it comes to applying for a job; we will want to stand out from the other candidates and be noticed, but we also do not want to risk our chances for consideration by standing out too much.

In most cases with problem write-ups you will know your audience: your instructor and other classmates. Some questions will ask you to imagine a different audience for your response. The general approach to such questions, including content, structure, and tone, will likely be different than the approach that you take to other parts of the problem that do not require consideration of a specific audience. However, keep in mind that problem-based learning promotes a process of discovery. This pertains to the writing process that your group adopts in order to tackle these problem write-ups as much as it pertains to the research and response process on which you decide. In Chapter 7, we will review the way that you decide to construct your problem response and how this is up to all the group members. As mentioned earlier, one of the challenges of problem write-ups is representing the group position while also allowing for individual perspectives to be acknowledged when necessary. There may be responses to prompts with which all group members agree, and there may be times when part of the group disagrees with the majority or the entire group is divided.

� How will you acknowledge these moments in your write-up?

� Do you want to present a problem write-up that moves through the problem prompt by prompt, or do you want to present more of a united piece that while complete and which addresses all parts of the problem does not move progressively through the problem prompts? Or do you want to be even more creative and experiment with form and various literary genres in your problem write-up?

As the next chapter will emphasize, the only major requirement of the problem write-up, unless specified otherwise by your instructor, is that your group addresses every part of the problem. How you choose to meet this requirement and present an engaging and convincing argument is up to your group.


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chapter

the problem write-up

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7

Critical�Writing

The last chapter emphasized the importance of critical thinking and taking time with the process of discovery. While many of us would welcome the opportunity to continue thinking through difficult issues, we know that timelines, deadlines, and busy lives and schedules often keep us from unlimited “thinking” time. In reality, we have to stop the process and take stock of where we are.

The due date for the problem write-up as well as the guidelines and action plan that your group generated at the start of the problem-solving process will help to keep you on track with regard to meeting your deadline. While it is likely that many of you will feel like there is more to learn about the problem and remain interested in the issues beyond the timeframe designated for the problem-solving process, you will need to bring things to a close to both generate and revise the problem write-up.

Engaging writing depends upon critical thinking. Without interesting ideas and thought devoted to topics, people’s writing would consist of very little compelling content and exhibit little innovative form. The problem-solving process ensures that you have time to think about the topic, research it thoroughly, consult with your group, draft, and revise the problem write-up by the deadline. However, it is absolutely essential to work together as a group during each stage of this process. While there may be some independent work-time embedded within the group context, each group member should have a clear understanding of the group process and be aware of the role and contributions of each group member. Meeting all of the problem requirements should not be an issue if all of the group members took the recommended time necessary at the outset of the problem-solving process to establish group guidelines and an action plan.

Sharing the WorkloadHow many times have you worked as part of a group only to feel like you did “all of the work”? This feeling can arise for a number of reasons: perhaps careful group guidelines and an action


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plan were never generated, maybe these documents were flawed in some way, perhaps a group member (or more than one) chose not to adhere to these documents, or possibly you decided to take control of the project. Regardless of the underlying reason(s), one thing is certain: it is not pleasant when it feels like you have done more work than other group members and yet everyone is treated as an equal contributor. For the problem-solving process to function most effectively, each individual must be engaged equally in the process.

As discussed earlier, it is likely that the problem-solving process will consist of a combination of independent and group work. This is fine; nowhere is it stated that the group must act together at all stages of the problem-solving process. Yet, keep in mind that making sure that each person takes on and/or is given an equal share of the workload is difficult to monitor. Again, fair distribution of problem requirements is essential to consider and manage at the outset of the problem-solving process. How will you keep each group member accountable to his or her share of the workload without jeopardizing the outcome of the project as a whole?

Say, for instance, that one group member does not carry his or her share of the workload, then what? This is always a difficult situation to deal with, and it emphasizes the importance of generating specific group guidelines that discuss consequences should someone fail to meet these guidelines. We all prefer to avoid conflict and tension whenever possible; written guidelines, while not altogether eliminating the conditions that might give rise to conflict and tension, do provide you with a course of action. Hence, when you generate guidelines, make sure that your group includes a strategy for dealing with these types of situations.

One thing that is important to keep in mind is that unless specified otherwise by your instructor, group members should try to resolve conflict as a group first before turning to the instructor for help. Part of the group process is learning how to communicate effectively with diverse audience members within various situations. Consider some basic strategies for effective communication when dealing with a challenging situation:

� Remain calm: Intense emotions often cloud perspective and lead to hurt feelings.

� Allow people the chance to speak: Perhaps there is something about the situation that you do not understand or confusion regarding procedure and outcomes.

� Listen carefully: It is important to understand the situation before judging it or deciding on next steps.

� Refer to written guidelines: Group-generated guidelines emphasize collaboration and remind individuals of the group process.

� Call on a facilitator: If attempts at group communication fail, then instead of getting angry or frustrated, call on an outside facilitator to help overcome challenges.

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The Problem Write-Up

Writing TogetherWriting together means different things for different problem-solving groups. It may mean literally writing together as a group in order to generate the problem narrative. Some groups are extremely effective at sitting together as a group after research and preliminary thinking has been completed and drafting the problem write-up. Other groups prefer to draft parts of the problem as individuals and come together as a group in order to compare material and rework research and prose into a single document. When the situation allows, groups that are able to communicate via email, discussion groups, or through e-learning environments such as Blackboard, often prefer to explore issues, draft, and even revise through this virtual environment, while using face-to-face time to flesh out challenging materials and make more complex decisions. Again, the way that a group decides to “write together” will have a lot to do with the group dynamics and decisions regarding guidelines and action plans; yet, it is important that groups consider how writing will be generated, revised, and worked through to the satisfaction of all group members.

Communication, Exploration, Understanding, and PositioningSimilar to finding an individual writing process that works for you and considers the basic stages of most processes—brainstorming, drafting, revising, and editing—your group will need to establish a group writing process that allows you to accomplish the same steps as you work towards the problem write-up that you will turn in to your instructor. Allowing for time to generate and work through ideas, while considering the time that you will need for revising and editing your document, is important for producing a write-up that reflects your hard work and about which your group members can be proud. Communication, exploration, understanding, and positioning are all important to the major stages of writing processes, and you will find that you will be engaging in all of these activities throughout your group writing experience.

Communication

Communication has been discussed at length throughout this text, mainly because healthy communication is so essential to all stages of a productive group learning experience. A willingness to communicate and to work at the process will carry your group through all stages of your thinking, research, and writing process from brainstorming to drafting to revising to editing. At the beginning of the process, communication will be essential for figuring out the points of entry into the problem-solving process: where will your group start, and what sorts of possibilities exist for progress? Because the problem-solving process depends upon engagement and critical thinking on the part of the group members, it is important that group members think about possible directions for the problem from the outset. Research and progress through the process will likely alter the initial action plan somewhat, but understanding the breadth of possibilities before getting too far into the process and brainstorming regarding a directional path will be helpful.


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Communication will continue to grow in importance during the problem-solving process. This is due, in large part, to the fact that you will need to make decisions as a group about procedure, next steps, what to include and exclude, the presentation of material, etc. The process becomes more complex as you progress because you will have so many good ideas and so much material, and you will need to make decisions as a group about what makes it into the final document and how it is presented to your audience. Hence, the drafting and revision of your problem write-up will require intensive communication, and this type of communication should persist through the editing process.

Just like a formal writing assignment that is turned in for a grade, a problem write-up should show that the group took the time necessary to make sure that the document was proofread carefully. Remember that revising and editing are not the same things; when you revise a document, you are considering both global and local issues. Argument, focus, organization, and use and treatment of evidence are all global issues; typically, work on one of these issues will produce substantial changes regarding document form and content. Grammar, syntax, and documentation are all considered local�issues and should be given careful consideration after global� changes� have been made. Remember that global changes to a document will often dramatically change the form and content of a document; hence, local changes made prior to global changes may prove to be a waste of time.

Exploration

The exploration process, because it depends so much on critical reading and research, will allow you the most flexibility in terms of communication and the group writing process. Exploration is flexible; this is the time when you should be exploring possibilities, following leads, and allowing for discoveries. Again, depending on your group and the decisions that you make in terms of guidelines and an action plan will determine how you approach this process. However, even if you decide to structure this exploratory process a bit, you should still consider it a time and/or stage in the process when you allow discovery to take place. This is when problem solving will become the most exciting and unpredictable and allow you to leave your mark on the process.

Depending on the way your class is set up and the technology available, your group may or may not be able to communicate easily outside of class hours. Access to technology certainly streamlines the communication process and often makes face-to-face meetings unnecessary, but not all group members will always have easy access to technology and not all classrooms will support the use of technology during and outside of class hours. As a group, you will need to take stock of the resources available to all group members before forging ahead with the exploration stage of the problem-solving process.

Like communication, exploration really extends throughout the problem-solving process. As already emphasized, the problem-solving process is a process of discovery; there is no

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correct or incorrect response to any problem prompt—there is simply no “yes” or “no” answer. This is why it is very likely that each group will come up with its own unique response and approach the entire problem-solving process in different ways. Yet, there will come a time when you will need to rein in the exploration process. Because exploration can be interesting and exciting, it can also become very consuming. Hence, when you generate your guidelines and action plan, consider including a timeline/calendar for the problem completion process. When will you allow for the freedom to explore and discover points of entry into and paths through the problem, and when will you decide that it is time to begin the drafting process? Deciding to draft does not mean that exploration is over; rather, it means that the process is streamlined and research becomes more directed towards responding to specific questions you have about the overall focus of the problem write-up and support for this focus. Just like communication, exploration still takes place but is more directed based on decisions made by the group members as the problem write-up is generated.

Understanding

We often believe that we “understand” something after we encounter it for the very first time. Think about assignments and projects that you have undertaken in the past, books you have read, speeches you have heard, conversations that you have had, etc.; often we think that we understand these things without giving them very much thought. Yet, critical thinking is essential to our understanding of almost everything that we encounter on a daily basis, and more challenging material requires more even more time and thought.

When it comes to problem solving, it is important not to accept anything at face value. If these problems were easy to “solve,” then they probably would not be included in this text because they would supply very little about which to write. The readings for these problems are challenging, the prompts are complex and open-ended, the problem requires research, and the research process opens up additional complexities and possibilities in terms of the unfolding of the problem. Understanding will rely on:

� close reading of the problem and problem materials

� communication among group members

� engaged exploration through research

� refinement of ideas through the drafting and revising process

Part of the challenge for the group will be to ensure that all group members progress towards understanding together. This does not mean that each member will reach the same level of understanding at the same time and in the same way, but in order for communication to be most productive, it is important that you take stock of where everyone is in terms of their understanding of and engagement with the problem. Being able to communicate as a group


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regarding the progress of the problem is essential for the decision making process and the identification and expression of a group position.

Positioning

It is true that each problem included in this text is comprised of a number of different prompts. It is perfectly acceptable, if the group decides, to generate a problem write-up that works through the problem prompts and responds to them in chronological order. This is not the only way that the problem write-up can be formatted, but it is one basic way to respond to the problem and its requirements should your group choose to do so. Yet, even if the group decides upon this more conventional approach to the problem write-up, it is not enough to simply respond to each prompt. After reading the problem carefully and thinking about it critically, you will see that each problem prompt builds on the one that precedes it and anticipates the prompt to follow. This makes it impossible to divide questions among group members and then come together in order to cut and paste together your individual contributions. Instead, the group will need to:

� brainstorm together

� communicate effectively

� discuss ideas

� make choices

These actions will allow you to determine the position that you will put forward in the problem write-up. Just like any formal paper or project, this will need to set forth a clear position on which it will focus and develop throughout the problem write-up.

Remember that all strong arguments include a “what” + a “why.” You develop an argument through the combination of supporting claims and evidence. After deciding on an argument, group members will need to determine how this argument will be developed. What are the main claims that you will use to support your argument? How will you use evidence to back up these claims?

If for “The Problem of Education,” your group decides to focus on the negative effects of certain types of power on education, how will it support its argument? Will supportive claims emphasize the connection between certain types of power and specific negative effects on education, and/or will claims alternate between isolating specific types of power and negative effects? Thinking about supportive claims, the material foregrounded through them, and their progression throughout the problem write-up is essential. Supportive claims serve as a roadmap through a document. In fact, if a reader were to deconstruct your project and produce a reverse outline, then the supportive claims should signal the major stages of your overall argument presented in a logical order.

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Just as supportive claims “support” an overall argument, evidence must be included in order to support the supportive claims. There are countless possibilities when it comes to the ways that you can present evidence. You might decide to include direct�quotations that you then analyze and explain for your audience. You might decide to summarize or paraphrase material. You might choose to include personal experience as evidence, or perhaps create a scenario or narrative to support a claim. If you take a more creative approach to the problem write-up and include various genres, then the relationship between your claims and evidence might look different than when they are presented in a more conventional format. Just think about the differences between how an argument is presented in a formal academic paper and the way it is presented in a short story or poem; both content and form are distinct within these specific genres. Hence, as you make decisions regarding how your position will be presented in your problem write-up, think very carefully about the major building blocks of an argument: a clear focus that includes a what + a why supported by claims and evidence.

Earning ApplauseCommitting yourself to the problem-solving process and fulfilling goals and objectives through enthusiasm and hard work should earn you the applause and recognition you deserve.

As you work through the problem-solving process and make discoveries about the material, you will likely find that these discoveries cause you to think about how you want to present this material to your audience. Is the conventional approach of presenting responses to prompts in chronological order the most effective method for presenting information to your audience? Again, think about the emphasis on power and education in “The Problem of Education.” Perhaps during your work on this problem you will find that voice and perspective are very important in talking about this relationship. Will a conventional format capture the nuances of voice and details of perspective as well as a mixture of genres such as dialogue or a vignette? Will a conventional problem write-up allow you to tap into emotion in such a way as a trial transcript might or a poem or a song? How you present your research, critical thinking, and ideas is just as important as what you present. Hence, even if your instructor prefers a more conventional write-up, think carefully about your word choice, sentence structure, and voice as you present the material that you worked hard to collect.

Acknowledging AssistanceAs with all projects that involve research and/or collaboration, it is absolutely essential to acknowledge sources of information. Think about it this way: How do you feel when you have worked hard on something, committed the time necessary to get the job done well, made discoveries along the way, and then someone else is awarded credit for your hard work? It’s not a positive feeling, is it? Then think about doing this to someone else whose work has helped you towards success. Nothing excuses plagiarism. Plagiarism means representing someone else’s ideas and words as your own.


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It is true that it is often difficult to know when and how to cite information, and a collaborative working environment makes this even more complex. Regarding the former, if material gathered through research is not considered common knowledge, it should be cited. This pertains to unique information, ideas, and language choices made by the author.

If you include material verbatim from the original source in your work, it is referred to as a direct�quotation. Material that is used as a direct quotation needs to be placed in quotation marks, and depending on the citation method preferred by your instructor, followed by a parenthetical citation. Any parenthetical citation used within the body of a written project signals the need for the source to be included on your works cited page, bibliography, etc. at the end of your project (again, the resource document used will depend upon your citation method).

Paraphrased�material also needs to be cited within the body of your written project and on a resource page. Paraphrasing material involves restating information in approximately the same number of words as in the original source. This sounds easier than it is; people often run into problems because they believe that using some of the word choice that appears in the original document is acceptable if it is cited. In fact, this is not true; any “borrowing” from the original must be included in quotation marks, and it is best to avoid borrowing from the original at all. If you paraphrase, the paraphrased material should be about the same length as in the original, you should use your own word choice (put the original aside and do not look at it as you attempt to paraphrase), a parenthetical citation should follow the material, and the original should be included on your resource page. Paraphrased material differs from a summary in that the latter condenses the original into a shorter amount of written space whereas the former reports information in the writer’s own words. In both cases you must announce to your reader that you are presenting information from another source. This is often referred to as “signaling” your reader, and in order to do so, you use a signal�phrase. You also follow your paraphrase or summary with a specific page reference presented as part of a parenthetical citation.

Below are examples of a direct quotation and example of paraphrasing using Derrick Jensen’s Walking on Water. The summary section explains how one might go about summarizing the portion of Jensen’s text used for “The Problem of Education,” page 38. All examples follow MLA format.

Original: Derrick Jensen, Walking on Water, page 38.

Direct�Quotation: Remember that a direct quotation involves some sort of signal phrase and a parenthetical citation following the quoted material. Also, it is always important to analyze the quoted material for your reader. Quoted material does not “speak for itself ” just like it is important to read a problem, supporting material, and/or research carefully, it is important to show your

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reader how you reached your understanding of the material included in your writing. “Walk your reader through your own interpretative process” show, don’t simply tell, your reader how you came to your understanding of a piece of text.

Example: Derrick Jensen begins his first day of class by telling the story of one of his most memorable instructors who shaped his understanding of who makes a good teacher. This economics instructor told him, “ ‘Never believe anything you read, and rarely believe anything you think’ ” (19). Jensen goes on to explain that this focus on questioning and critical thinking, the experience of doing this himself as a student, helped to shape his future teaching philosophy.

Paraphrase: Remember that you must always signal the source before presenting paraphrased material. Also keep in mind that you will be reporting information and doing so using the same amount of writing space as is occupied in the original. Just as with direct quotations, the source must be acknowledged using a parenthetical citation.

Example�(original): “Have you ever seen the stars in the desert, or the moon? Have you lain naked in the dew? When did you last walk barefoot in the snow, watch a falling star, or take a bath in a fast cold river? When was the last time you listened to the piper at the gates of dawn? These are more of the best teachers I’ve every had.”

Example� (paraphrase): In his chapter “How Not to Teach” in Walking on Water, Derrick Jensen discusses strong teaching by referring to various types of teachers and learning experiences outside of the classroom. He discusses the powerful learning experiences that he has had in Nature and the type of teachers that he has experienced in the sun, moon, stars, snow, or rivers. He describes these teachers and his reaction to them as inspiring him to pause, alter his perspective, and notice details (19).

Summary: Remember that summaries condense information, and in doing so often foreground the main focus of the section. If you consider the entire selection from Jensen’s Walking on Water used for “The Problem of Education” (page 38), what is the main point? What is Jensen’s focus in these four pages, and how does he develop this focus? How will you provide your audience with a snapshot of these pages and the essential details therein? Remember that you must signal the source for this material before presenting the summary and follow the material with a parenthetical citation to relevant page numbers.


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Just as it is important to acknowledge the influence of published resources on your work—and this certainly includes both hardcopy and electronic resources; yes, material taken from internet sites, blogs, advertisements, etc. must be cited properly—you should acknowledge the influence of original thinking from group and classmates on your work. This does not mean that you need to determine which contributions came from whom as you compile the problem write-up; however, if someone is responsible for an original idea or a strategy that helps to shape how you construct the problem write-up, then this should be acknowledged within the document. How you decide to make these acknowledgements will depend upon the structure of your document, instructor requirements, and the input from other group members. If you are using parenthetical citations throughout your entire problem write-up, then perhaps this is the method that you will decide to adopt for original contributions from group members. Maybe you will decide to use footnotes or endnotes to document contributions and/or provide extended explanations of resources and choices regarding content and form. The way that you acknowledge original contributions from your peers will be up to your group members and instructor; however, it is an important action to practice because it reinforces the collaborative nature of this learning experience and attests to the quality of your work in terms of originality, completeness, and professionalism.

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large group discussion

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8

Communication

One of the most rewarding stages of the problem-solving process is the large group discussion as an entire class that concludes each problem sequence. This is the chance to share what your group discovered through the process and to hear from other groups and learn how they grappled with the problem. You will quickly see how the problem-solving process influences large group discussion. Participants in the problem-solving process have a lot to say about how they tackled the problem, what they learned through the process, and what more they still would like to discover. People also become passionate about their own and/or their group’s position on certain issues, and you will see how lively debate is fueled through this passion and interest.

Lively, informed, interesting, and passionate debate is wonderful to experience in a classroom setting. There is little in the classroom that surpasses the experience of learning from a classroom community, hearing from a range of your peers, considering the voice of your instructor as it contributes to the dialogue, and contributing to the discussion from an informed position in which you are invested. When we experience a lively classroom discussion, we quickly recognize what is often missing from many learning environments.

Just like it is important to respect individual voices and various points of view in a small group situation, it is important to remain respectful of these issues in a large group setting as well. Every group will have put a lot of hard work and thought into the problem-solving process, and every group member will likely feel passionate about some area of the problem write-up. However, realize that not every group will have approached the problem-solving process like you have, not every group member will agree with all approaches to all problem prompts, and not every group member will feel comfortable speaking out in support or defense of a claim or perspective. Hence, it is important to be open, receptive, and respectful during the discussion phase of the problem-solving process. Help to foster an environment that invites participation, supports contributors, and is a safe space to share ideas and learn from other scholars.


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Leading DiscussionWhile discussion format varies from classroom to classroom, more often than not students look to their instructor to “lead” discussion. Leading discussion can mean many different things in reference to this sort of classroom context depending upon the teaching style of the instructor. Some discussion sessions will involve “heavy” facilitation and either a lot of contribution from the instructor and/or adherence to established discussion protocol, and others will include a “looser” structure and involve fewer instructor contributions and guidelines. Again, how the classroom functions depends a lot upon the style of the instructor and the nature of the course.

While instructor style will influence the way classroom discussion functions even in the classroom that includes problem-based learning, it is important to understand that all members of the classroom community following a problem-solving sequence are “discussion leaders” within this context. Most instructors will likely help the class generate a discussion protocol, much like what you do in a small group setting when you came up with group guidelines and an action plan, and many instructors will serve as discussion facilitators, much like the role they occupied during the problem-solving process. If the class encounters a “stumbling block” of some sort during class discussion, the instructor will help navigate a path over, around, through, etc. that stumbling block and keep discussion moving in a productive direction. However, during discussions that stem from problem-based learning, the instructor is just one expert among many; he or she has much to learn from the hard work of the groups, just like you have much to learn from the instructor and your classmates.

As a leader, then, what is your role? Contributing productively to a discussion that involves many voices and various perspectives is not always an easy task. When you feel passionately about an issue it is sometimes difficult to resist speaking; instead of listening to others and thinking about a perspective, people can be quick to contribute something to discussion that is not always helpful. Sometimes people do not know where they stand on an issue and/or are timid about aligning themselves with a definite position. And some people, for whatever reason, do not want to consider alternatives or invite others to engage with a topic as a viable discussion point. Yet, all of these practices are important to being a strong discussion leader and fostering healthy and productive discussion.

Sharing the StageWhen we feel passionately about something, it is often difficult to refrain from telling others about it, especially when this passion is fueled by hard work, conversation, thought, and research. Furthermore, we often feel justified in expressing our ideas. And we should certainly feel justified in doing so as long as we do not silence others in the process.

The most crucial part of being a productive discussion leader is listening to others. Certainly contributing to discussion is important, but how you contribute to discussion is just as

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Large Group Discussion

important as what you contribute to discussion. Take, for example, an instance of private conversation with a friend when you recount a particularly gratifying or meaningful experience that you have had. Then your friend responds in such a way that suggests he or she did not listen carefully to what you said. Either the response is vague or completely off topic. How does this make you feel? Disappointed? Defensive? Angry? Does it make you want to continue the discussion? Or, consider a spirited debate with someone regarding a controversial issue. You pose a claim and offer some evidence to back up the claim. Then, rather than responding to your claim or evidence, your debate partner makes a claim that seems unconnected to your own, as if the person was so attached to this claim, so passionate about expressing it, that he or she did not really listen to and consider your claim and evidence. Again, how does this make you feel?

By listening, we learn. Learning about something, allowing something to inform our thinking, does not mean that we compromise our thinking about or our position regarding an issue; rather, it means that we are willing to consider alternatives and learn from the counter-arguments that people present in response to our thinking. As you know from the problem-solving process, productive collaborative work depends upon people’s willingness to listen to their peers, conduct thorough research, think deeply about issues, and consider an array of possibilities for best presenting the findings to a wider audience. The same thing must occur in a large group context. All contributors must make a commitment to listen carefully to one another and to share the stage as each group showcases their hard work and group findings. Remember, the problem-solving process is about discovery and not about coming up with a “correct answer.”

Assuming a PositionJust as it is important to listen to others and allow diverse ideas to inform your thinking, it is also crucial to understand your own position on issues. As you have learned through the problem-solving process and will be reinforced through formal paper writing, an argument must be carefully considered and constructed. It is not enough to state enthusiastically that you believe something; rather, when presenting a formal argument it is important to consider both the “what” and the “why” and to support your argument with well constructed claims and evidence. When an argument is well structured and you have spent the time necessary to make sure that you understand the various stages of your argument and can anticipate possible counter-arguments, then you are in a better position to speak from an informed and knowledgeable perspective.

Within the context of a large group discussion, it is important to understand both your and your group’s position regarding major issues that pertain to the problem. A lot of ideas will be exchanged during the discussion, and while exploring alternative strategies and possible ways to respond to problem prompts is part of the excitement, it is also necessary to understand the way your group explored various prompts. This awareness will allow the problem-solving


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groups, within the context of the large group discussion, to remain on track, or at least to get back on track, when discussion moves off on a tangent, people get confused, or you find yourself in a situation when it is necessary to defend or explain your position. These “touchstones” created by a solid argument help to establish a solid foundation from which to work during discussions that can become—much to the pleasure of all involved—lively, spirited, and fast-paced.

A solid foundation can also help to prevent hurt feelings. Intellectual investment in, time spent on, and hard work devoted to a project often means that we are emotionally invested in our work. We might begin the project feeling strongly about it and/or our work on it might lead to strong feelings; regardless, most of us come to feel some sort of emotional attachment towards important projects and the issues connected with them. When an argument is constructed carefully and a solid foundation is established, it becomes easier to avoid hurt feelings when someone disagrees with our position. If we have done a good job, we need to remember that the disagreement is not with us or the work, but rather with the issues involved. A solid argumentative foundation will help us to remember that it is not about us. It will become easier to return to the issue and the way(s) that we have presented it. And a good rule of thumb whenever you are engaging in a discussion that involves controversial material is to keep the discussion about the material and not about the people presenting it.

Acknowledging AlternativesThere is not much worse than an individual so committed to a position that he or she will not even acknowledge alternative viewpoints. Most of us have experienced a private or public conversation with someone who refuses to listen to counterarguments, suggestions, alternative viewpoints, etc. It is a frustrating situation to say the least. Even if we do not agree with a different perspective, we should not refuse to acknowledge that the perspective exists. Understanding these different perspectives helps to improve our ability to support our own argument.

There are various audiences for which arguments are constructed. At times, we know before presenting an argument who will comprise our audience. We are then able to write for them, remain committed to our argumentative position, but understand how to appeal to these audience members. Other times, we do not know our audience and can only guess about their position, prior knowledge, and possible response to the argument. At all points on this audience continuum, we know that there will be alternative responses and approaches to our position. Taking the time to think about possible alternative viewpoints as we construct and present an argument, then, is important to the overall strength and appeal of the argument.

This issue applies to the discussion context as well in that we should be thinking about alternative perspectives and how we will respond to them as we are constructing our argument. Anticipating such alternatives will help to strengthen a written argument in that it will respond to these alternatives using various claims and examples of evidence. When

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this written argument is moved into the discussion context, then the acknowledgement of counterarguments will show that they have been considered and responded to through the presentation of a different perspective. And, of course, there will be counterarguments and responses that you have not considered, and while you may not agree with these alternative viewpoints, they will give you something to think about as you continue to revise your position either within the problem-solving context or when you work independently. Considering these alternatives and thinking about how to acknowledge and/or dismantle them is still part of the discovery process involved in problem-based learning.

Inviting PossibilityContemplate the experience of reading a good book. It’s as though the author invites the audience to participate. The reader is not just a passive receiver of information, but rather an active participant in the argument—and/or story-building process. While, in most cases, we cannot control the outcome of the text, we are invited to entertain the possibility of doing so. We are invited to collaborate with the author in the narrative process.

It is possible to create this reader-based experience in any piece of writing that you produce, and problem-based learning, with its emphasis on collaboration and the process of discovery, lends itself to this approach to writing, presentation of writing, and the discussion that ensues. If members of the small problem-solving groups take this approach to writing and discussion, the experience of sharing your work with others and learning from the different perspectives that emerge will allow the process of discovery to continue.

As you are producing your problem write-ups, then, consider ways to present a solid and thought-provoking argument that challenges others to think critically and contribute to the argument. You have then placed yourself in the perfect position to receive their feedback, glean good ideas, and continue the process of discovery as you move towards presenting individual work. If you really think about it, work is never a purely “individual” endeavor. Individuals are products of the circumstances that surround them; we are all socially-constructed beings (no matter how vehemently we rebel against this reality and/or are conscious of it), and we respond to that which informs and shapes us on a daily basis. Hence, when you move on to the individual writing assignments that are part of most composition-based courses, you will carry with you the experience of being involved in a direct collaboration in your small problem-solving groups and during large group discussion. As an individual writer working on independent writing projects, you will still be influenced by the collaborative experiences that you have had during the problem-solving process. You will think about what it meant to work collaboratively with others, and to share the stage, acknowledge alternatives, and invite possibility as you assumed a position and worked to stay true to it. In essence, you will be involved in an indirect collaboration with others as you embark on your individual projects, and in being so, will be more likely to consider ways of inviting others to participate in the reading experience as they engage with your written perspective.


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9

Writing as a Process of Discovery

The problem-solving experience allows you to engage in a process of discovery that will uncover exciting ideas that may be carried into and developed through your individual writing. If you pause for a moment and think about the basic stages of any writing process—brainstorming, pre-drafting, organizing, drafting, revising, and editing—you will recognize that idea gathering, brainstorming, and consultation with others either directly in person or indirectly through researching is essential to the start of any compelling writing project. As discussed throughout this text, authors never write in a vacuum; rather, they are influenced by what surrounds them both locally and globally. As socially-constructed and socially-determined beings, our perception of and interaction with the world depends on how we function in relation to it. Hence, in a way, we are in constant collaboration and communication with this world. The problem-solving process isolates and foregrounds our collaborative position and communication infrastructure that we depend upon on a daily basis to better understand and express our relationship with the world.

Part of the way that we come to better understand this world and express our discoveries is through writing. Writing allows us to work through ideas in greater detail and to refine our thinking through a drafting, revising, and editing process. It is likely that while your group work led to some promising ideas, you probably did not agree completely with everything discussed and/or how it was presented in the group write-up, and you probably did not have enough time to work through some ideas that interested you on the individual level in as much detail as possible. An individual writing assignment that is connected with the problem in some way will allow you do to this.

When it comes time to draft your first formal writing assignment, think about the process in which you have just engaged:

� What did you learn through this process?

� What discoveries did you make?

� What questions do you still have?


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� What types of strategies did you employ in order to find information?

� How did you pull together everything and produce a well-structured, well researched, and well-written product?

These questions touch on several areas of the learning process from content to research to planning to organization to drafting to revising. These questions also gesture towards the group process and remind us of the importance of discussion and communication, practices that are just as relevant to the individual learning process in terms of communicating with texts and with yourself as you work through ideas as they are to the more familiar face-to-face or electronic interchanges that take place when you are working on a project with others.

Remember when you begin work on an individual assignment that what preceded this project matters to this new stage in the writing experience. Build on what you have already learned. Take advantage of the work that has been done; use this work to expand and develop your own thinking and to propose a refined and engaging argument of your own that showcases your original thinking and growing expertise with regard to the subject.

Applying Critical Processes Across Disciplines

The experience gained through the problem-solving process is just as applicable to your work across disciplines as it is to your work in the composition classroom. When you speak to professors from various disciplines and ask them what is most important to success in their classes, many will reply, “critical thinking.” Students who are willing to take their time with difficult problems, discuss and collaborate with others, and engage actively in the learning process are more likely to succeed throughout their academic career.

While problem-solving processes, writing styles, resources, and documentation strategies may vary according to discipline, critical thinking skills are applicable across grade levels and content areas. Consider what it means to be an active learner, one who assumes ownership of his or her education. When we assume ownership of something, we take possession of it, and we establish relevance between that “something” and our life. Making connections with our own life helps learning to become more “authentic” for us. Taking ownership of our learning and making connections with our own life through critical thinking is relevant to learning in all disciplines.

Reading, Thinking, and Writing

“The Problem of Education,” along with all of the other problems in the book, stress the importance of the three-way connection among critical reading, thinking, and writing. Each problem begins by asking you to consider information that you already know—they ask you to make personal connections based on pre-existing knowledge. Then, each problem asks you to expand your knowledge and deepen your thinking about various subjects through

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From Group Work to the Individual Writer

reading. In most cases, one read-through of the assigned material will not be enough; rather, the difficulty and/or uniqueness of the material will require multiple re-readings in order to reach a thorough enough understanding of the content to allow groups to move forward with the more complex stages of the problem. In addition to assigned readings, each problem includes guided research that asks groups to seek out additional information to help them work through the problem. This research will broaden the context for the problem and enable groups to better understand issues and to forge connections with the problem content, their lives, their learning, and the larger world. Writing, of course, carries the project along. Various types of writing are required by the problems from free-writing to brainstorming to note-taking to electronic discourse to drafting, revision, and editing to creative writing to academic discourse. Some form of writing is required at every stage of the problem-solving process and will reveal to your group areas of understanding and areas that need attention. This practice and the decisions required of your group regarding what to include and exclude, how to structure write-ups, how best to appeal to your audience, etc. are all relevant to your work in this class and others throughout your academic career. Furthermore, successful writing depends upon successful reading and thinking; without interesting ideas with which to grapple, you will have very little substance to explore and showcase through your writing.

Writing AssignmentsAs you understand by now, writing is a process that involves multiple stages that are unique to the individual writer. You have already explored a version of the writing process through your work on “The Problem of Education” that includes brainstorming, drafting, and revising. As you move towards brainstorming about, drafting, revising, and finally editing an individual writing project, you will have the opportunity to expand some of your thinking from “The Problem of Education.” Below, and following each of the four problems in this text, are prompts for both informal and formal writing assignments. The informal writing prompts are intended to help you expand and deepen your thinking about major issues explored in the problems. For example, the informal writing assignments below help you to think about the relationship between power and education. “The Problem of Education” asked you to explore the impact of No Child Left Behind on public education and student learning and the informal writing prompts ask you to explore the influence of other forms of power on education. All of the informal writing assignments in this text will help you to broaden your thinking about issues connected with the problems, and in doing so help you to form your own original argument for your formal papers.

Once the time arrives for you to work on your formal papers, you will have had plenty of practice generating, researching, and refining ideas. You will also have practice communicating your ideas to various audiences and working through these ideas through discussion and on paper with your peers. Practice in these areas relevant to the writing process will prove beneficial as you begin to think about your own interests and position regarding specific issues. You will already have some ideas generated through your work on the problem and


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informal writing assignments, and you will have established helpful relationships with your peers that will help you through all stages of the writing process from brainstorming through revision. Although you will be writing formal assignments on your own, it is still often helpful to seek feedback from potential audience members regarding your stance on an issue and how you communicate it in writing. The more time you take with all stages of an assignment and the more feedback you solicit will help better prepare you for success on the assignment.

You have many tools in your writer’s toolbox. Use your experience with problem-solving, honed communication skills, and growing awareness of your own writing process to help you present the most convincing argument possible about the relationship between power and education.

Informal

Personal

1. Return to your initial free-write for “The Problem of Education” that asked you to reflect on your educational history. After working through part or all of “The Problem of Education,” write about ways your work on the problem and in your group has informed your thinking about your educational history. What have you learned through this process that has deepened, challenged, reconfirmed, etc. your understanding of your educational history?

2. What are the most significant ways that power has influenced you as a learner? Can you remember specific times when your learning was improved by the intervention of power? How was learning improved? When was your learning hindered by a display of power? In hindsight, was there any way that you could have responded differently to these encounters with various displays of power?

3. Identify a moment in your past when a form of power impacted you in a significant way—either positively or negatively. Now, as a college student, what advice would you give your younger self about dealing with this experience?

Media

1. Identify two forms of media from which you typically get your daily news. Watch, read, and/or listen to these sources for a couple of days to determine

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how these resources approach the topic of power and education. How often is education mentioned? (Remember that it is possible to discuss the issue of education in many different ways, both directly and indirectly.) How often is power discussed in relation to education? What message is being sent by each of these media sources regarding education?

2. Based on brief study of these resources and their treatment of education and power, how important of an issue does this seem to be to these media sources? What does their treatment of this issue reveal about their view of education and its importance within society? What does their treatment of this issue reveal about their political alignment and perhaps the influence of power on these media sources?

3. Peruse your preferred media sources or branch out and explore some new resources keeping your write-up for “The Problem of Education” in mind. Locate a resource that provides content that either contributes to your discussion of power and education as presented in your write-up or is challenged, reinforced, and/or deepened by the material presented in the problem write-up. Discuss how these two resources inform one another.

Creative

1. “The Problem of Education” asked you to explore the relationship between power and education through words. What happens if you change the medium used to discuss this relationship? Select an aspect of the relationship discussed in your problem write-up and represent it through a picture collage. Find images—photographs, drawings, graphs, charts, etc.—that help you to present your argument. Explain, in writing, why you selected these images and how they work together to present an argument.

2. Draw a timeline of your educational history that includes the highs and lows of this history as brought on by encounters with various sources of power. Examples of high points might be when you were rewarded for an academic accomplishment, reached a personal goal, or worked through a difficult scholarly enterprise. Examples of low moments might be when something prevented you from reaching an academic goal, when you were treated unfairly, or when you encountered challenges that were not overcome successfully. Label each high and low point, and when you are finished presenting your educational history, write a more detailed explanation of the entire project and include reflections regarding what you learned through the process.


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3. Using what you learned through the problem-solving process, identify an educational issue that you feel strongly about and draft a letter to the editor of your local school or city paper that presents the issue, describes why it is important, and proposes an action plan/solution for dealing with this issue. What you identify does not necessarily need to be a problem, but your letter should bring an educational issue to the attention of the editor and newspaper readership and explain why it is worthy of their attention.

Formal

Formal�Paper:��Power�and�Education

Background:��This formal writing assignment develops your work on “The Problem of Education.” You will use your work from this problem as the foundation from which to generate, develop, and refine an argument about the influence of power on education. As you know from your work on “The Problem of Education,” exposure to various media resources (newspapers, magazines, television, radio, the Internet, etc.), and experiences as a student, various forms of power influence education. Forms of power include global and local influences—think about cultural context, regional location, political figures, legislation, economics, the media, etc.—and vary according to the frame of reference—international, national, state, city/town, district, individual school, individual classroom, individual student, etc. There are many different ways to approach this assignment, so take advantage of the opportunity to write about an issue that interests you and is perhaps informed by your own experience as well as the other work completed and research conducted for “The Problem of Education.”

Assignment� Task:� � Your task for this assignment is to present an argument regarding the effects of a form of power on education. Identify the form of power, describe the type of influence, name the effects, and explain how and why identifying and discussing this form of power is relevant to our understanding of education, how education functions, and/or how education is successful or unsuccessful.

This assignment is designed to allow you to build on your work on “The Problem of Education” and take advantage of your own experiences as a student. Consider your reading of Jonathan Kozol and Derrick Jensen. While the former uses case studies as part of his evidence to support his overall argument, and the latter often relies upon personal experience to back up claims, both authors’ arguments are convincing because they combine these techniques with others to support the most appealing and persuasive argument for a broad audience. Consider the approaches to argument taken by these authors and ways to make your own argument appealing.

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While it might be tempting to tackle a rather large issue and to provide multiple scenarios and a plethora of evidence to support your argument, keep in mind that this is a three- to five-page paper. Carefully contemplate your topic and propose an argument that is manageable and possible to develop in a paper this length.

When working on your formal paper, consider the following:

� Remember: ARGUMENT=WHAT + WHY Make sure that you think about the difference between the “topic” for your paper and your “argument about” this topic. “What” do you plan to discuss, and “why” is it important to do so? Do not leave your audience asking, “so what?”

� When you think about the assignment task, do not simply structure your paper according to the categories identified. Rather, once you generate your argumentative thesis, then consider how you will structure the paper in order to best support this focus.

� Do not overlook the importance of claims and evidence for structuring your argument. Your main claim for each paragraph (remember, it does not need to be the first sentence of the paragraph) should help your reader to understand how each section of the paper develops your overall argument—supportive claims, taken out of context, should provide a general “roadmap.” Evidence comes in all shapes and sizes, but remember that evidence must be contextualized and analyzed carefully. In most cases, evidence will not “speak for itself.”

� Budget your time wisely and take advantage of the time available for drafting and revision. Meet deadlines, pay attention to feedback, and engage fully in the drafting and revision process. Recall the difference between global and local revision and keep in mind that global revisions are expected.

� Proofread carefully and pay attention to proper documentation techniques.


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Part3Refining�Practice�and�Making�Choices

chapter

revisiting group work

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10

Critical�Reminders

It is always difficult to know what to expect when you begin the problem-solving process. Group members come to the process with varying degrees of experience and both positive and negative opinions regarding group work. As you now know, taking the time to get to know group members and understanding their group work experiences as well as expectations are essential for a positive learning experience. This is a time consuming process; however, its importance cannot be overemphasized. Every person’s experiences and opinion of the group process is valid and acknowledging this is essential to a healthy and productive group experience.

How you approach initial interaction with your problem-solving group will depend upon whether or not your instructor assigns students to the same groups organized for “The Problem of Education” or assigns new groups for the next problem. In both cases, you will still need to take the time necessary to revisit the group guidelines and plan of action designed for the first problem and gauge whether either document is still satisfactory and/or helpful for the process. Following their experience with “The Problem of Education,” most students report that there are things they learned in the process that they want to consider when tackling the next problem, such as:

� Get all members on the same page.

� Make sure that everyone does their work outside of class.

� Meet outside of class.

� Negotiate among different personalities.

� Reach a group consensus and be able to do the work together.

This feedback reveals the level of work and dedication required to make sure that all group members fulfill the expectations of the group and the problem requirements. It shows that it is


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challenging to establish a schedule for the problem-solving process, especially when the group decides to hold outside-of-class meetings. And it emphasizes that different personalities, personal beliefs, and performance expectations will impact the outcome of the problem, and therefore must be considered carefully.

With these issues in mind, students preparing for the next problem will develop a new list of guidelines that might include the following:

� Establish a more detailed plan for the entire process.

� Arrange more time to work on the problem outside of class.

� Consider time management: finish research and start writing sooner.

� Make sure that everyone in the group works effectively towards the group goals.

As you work on the problems in this text, you will not only gain a better understanding of the potential pitfalls in the problem-solving process but also understand what you will need to do on both the individual and group level to avoid them and succeed. Students need to carefully consider an action plan, use their time wisely both inside and outside the classroom, and consider how to make everyone in the group accountable for their participation in the group. While none of these issues are easy to tackle given the number of variables involved, awareness and attention to these issues are an important step in addressing these effectively and directly.

Just as it is essential to understand and address the challenges of group work, it is equally important to recognize the successes you can experience and celebrate them. Positive outcomes typically include:

� Getting to know one another better.

� Exposure to diverse and good ideas.

� Deepening understanding by learning about and from different perspectives.

� Gaining a more thorough understanding of the subject through analysis and critical thinking.

Even though most students will emphasize the amount of work associated with the problem-solving process, they will also be quick to identify the rewards that they experienced as participants in the process. It is almost immediately recognizable following the first problem how helpful the problem-solving process is for getting to know your classmates better. You will not only learn, but also deepen your own understanding of difficult concepts through the knowledge, experience, and interesting ideas of your peers. All of this experience—both

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Revisiting Group Work

the successes and challenges—will inform your work on individual and group projects both within and beyond the composition classroom.

Roles, Policies, and OrganizationWhich of these student-generated strengths, challenges, and next steps sound familiar to you as you look back on the problem-solving process for “The Problem of Education” as well as your work on your first paper? With what do you and your group members relate, and what sounds different from your own group experiences? Because of the uniqueness of each group and each classroom context, experiences will vary; however, due to the way that the problem-solving process is designed for problem-based learning classes, many of the general issues that groups encounter tend to intersect.

No set of guidelines or action plan is ever perfect; rather, just like with formal writing, this material needs to be revised and through a revision process will become more refined and better able to address and support the issues at hand. Thus, the first step for your group for the second problem is to establish a set of group guidelines.

Understanding the Problem and Establishing a Problem-Solving PlanJust like you did for “The Problem of Education,” you need to establish a group problem-solving plan to make sure that you complete the problem on time and according to the level of quality expected by the group. Each group member will have additional knowledge about the problem-solving process through their work on the first problem that the entire group will likely want to consider as it moves forward with the second problem-solving experience. Even if you remain in the same problem-solving group, you need to think critically about the problem-solving process for the first problem, its successes and challenges, as you consider the new guidelines for the next problem. Since each problem in this book increases in complexity, you will need to think about what sounds familiar in terms of the general structure of the problem and what new learning layer or layers have been added.

A quick glance at “The Problem of Perspective” immediately reveals one of these layers: image�analysis. While analyzing images is, in many ways, similar to analyzing written text, the process of analysis and terminology used to describe the process is somewhat different. In both cases, you will conduct a “close reading” of the text: you will think about the overall context, arrive at a basic understanding of the message or theme of the text, and then deconstruct it into its various parts in order to determine whether or not this textual evidence supports this message, or if you need to revise your thinking based on your informed understanding of the text. You may find that you engage in the analytical process when faced with a visual text, and instead of using terminology like “word choice,” “voice,” and “sentence structure,” you will be using vocabulary such as “lighting,” “alignment,” “foreground,” “background,” and “emphasis” to describe your analysis. This new learning layer added to the problem will call


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for consideration by your group regarding the critical approach you will take to it and its role within the scope of the overall problem.

Exploring�with�Direction

As you know from your work on the first problem, there are no “right or wrong” answers when it comes to problem solving. Problems in this book are designed to engage and stretch your critical thinking skills and to inspire you to forge your own path through the problem and make enlightening discoveries along the way. However, this does not mean that each group member and/or the entire group should just dive in, head first, and not consider the terrain that lies ahead. Just like with “The Problem of Education,” there are parts of the problem that require both individual input and group consideration. Without stifling anyone’s interests and creativity, strategize regarding contributions:

� What interests certain individuals?

� What would they like to discover?

� How might this contribute to the problem write-up?

Just like you do when you write an individual paper, generate a general idea of what you plan to explore and why you want to do so and see what that exploration leads to. Again, it is just like drafting a paper— from a point of general interest, you research and contemplate and then refine your ideas and argument through writing. The objective should be for each group member to bring interesting material to the problem that will inform the group’s understanding of the subject, aid in the problem-solving process, and offer something towards completing the group write-up.

Analyzing�and�Synthesizing�as�a�Group

As you know, there is a point when the research process must end so that the group can take inventory of the information that has been gathered, process it, and refine the ideas into a concise form. Because each problem is structured to build on one another, it is important that everyone be involved in analyzing and synthesizing the material that goes into the final write-up.

It is likely that your experience in working on the first problem will provide adequate guidance for how to best pull together material in order to present a convincing position or argument. Each problem write-up will likely involve a specific focus and then offer a combination of claims and evidence to support and develop this focus. Just like when you write an individual paper, the problem will require you to analyze material and then synthesize various pieces of evidence in order to generate and develop a convincing argument. Hence, it is important that your action plan includes a communication strategy for how group members will communicate discoveries and be apprised of each other’s progress:

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� When will you check in with one another via email, phone, text messaging, or face-to-face?

� What will be expected of group members during these check ins?

� How will you take advantage of your time together to analyze and synthesize the major material for your problem write-up?

Refining�Your�Focus�and�Fine-Tuning

After you analyze and synthesize your material, it is time to make sure that the main focus of the problem write-up is clear, transitions are smooth between various sections of the document, and that you have ample and convincing evidence to back up the claims that you are making. You want to make sure that individual ideas, passions, and voices are present in the final document, but you also want to ensure that these work in concert to support a common focus.

The focus of the problem write-up might not be as narrow as that which appears as the argument of a formal paper written by an individual student. This is once again due to the fact that problems are designed to inspire exploration and encourage discovery. Within the group context and because a problem write-up is not as “formal” a document as a traditional academic paper, it might be more difficult to narrow the focus to a streamlined argument. However, even if the main focus could be refined to present a more definite argument, the focus of the problem should be apparent and the problem write-up should function as an inclusive and complete document. This will take work and time on the part of the entire group. It is not enough to cut and paste the document together at the last minute; rather, your group should set aside enough revision time as part of its plan of action in order to ensure that revision, editing, and fine-tuning can take place and help lead to a problem write-up about which all group members can be proud.


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Readings: Barry Lopez, About This Life. New York: Vintage Books, 1998. Chapter 13:

“Learning to See,” pp. 223-239.

Problem #2The Problem of Perspective

The Problem

Most of us are familiar with the expression, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” However, have you ever thought carefully about how these words are evoked? What makes a picture worth a thousand, five thousand, or ten thousand words? What makes the viewer respond in a certain way? Who has control over the image—the subject, photographer, and/or viewer—and how influential is the actual response on a local as well as more global scale?

Robert Adams, “Untitled, Colorado, after 1994”

Sam Abell, “Barry Bishop, Mt. Hood, Oregon, 1974.”

Frans Lanting, “Bonobo female sharing food with infants.”

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Barry Lopez examines these questions in the chapter “Learning to See” from his book About This Life. In this chapter, Lopez considers his personal and professional journey from photographer to author and discusses what this journey has taught him about his life and his contributions to the larger world. Just like Jonathan Kozol and Derrick Jensen address the influence of power on education, Lopez examines the influence of power on personal perspective and humanity in general. He describes himself as both a learner and teacher during this process and concludes by encouraging an engaged and collaborative response to the increasingly fragmented postmodern condition.

For this problem you will use your own experiences as a viewer and writer, specific photographs referred to in Lopez’s chapter, and Lopez’s discussion to consider the impact of “power” on perspective. What happens when various manifestations of power influence perspective? How does this make us “see” and consequently respond to what and how we see? Why is it important to “learn how to see” from within and beyond the boundaries that define our world and subject position?

Part I: The Individual Viewer1. Before reading “Learning to See” from Barry Lopez’s About This Life or consulting with

your group members, look at the three photographs taken by Robert Adams, Sam Abell, and Frans Lanting. For each photograph, make a list of things that you notice about the photograph. What do you see?

1a. After completing your initial list for each photograph, choose one of the photographs and reexamine it more closely. Think about what it means to conduct a close reading of a piece of text: after familiarizing oneself with the text and general meaning, a reader deconstructs, or breaks down, the text by considering specific elements like word choice, voice, tone, point-of-view, etc. Do the same with the photograph.

i. What elements make up the photograph? What objects are included?

ii. How are elements arranged? How are foreground and background used in the photograph? What is emphasized in the photograph?

iii. How is the viewer positioned in relation to the photograph? Does the photograph “invite” the viewer to participate in the interpretative process or is the viewer positioned as an outsider confined to a voyeuristic perspective?

iv. Does the caption help you to interpret the photograph? Why or why not?

1b. Title the photograph and explain briefly why you chose this title.


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Part II: Multiple Perspectives2. Before reading “Learning to See,” convene as a group and share your close readings of

the photographs. For each photograph describe how your close readings are similar and/or different.

2a. As a group, speculate as to why your close readings of the photographs are similar and different. What do you think influences perspective? Why do you think that people see in unique ways?

2b. Choose one photograph and, as a group, tell the “story” of the photograph. You may tell the story using any genre that you prefer. Perhaps you want to tell the story of the photograph from the position of the photographer who is writing to a friend about the experience of taking the photograph or recording the experience in a journal. Maybe you want to tell the story of the photograph from the perspective of an object, person, etc. in the photograph itself. Or, you might decide to tell the story of the photograph from the perspective of a certain viewer or collective audience. The choice is yours.

2c. Briefly explain why you decided to respond to 2a in a certain way. Why did you select the approach that you did? How did various group members influence the course of the story?

Part III: Influencing Perspective3. Read “Learning to See” by Barry Lopez. In this chapter from his book, Lopez describes

his experiences as a photographer and an author. He discusses how his perspective on the world and his life differed between these two roles. How does he describe his perspective as a photographer, and how does he describe his perspective as an author? Why did his focus shift from photography to writing?

3a. Now reexamine the essay and break down Lopez’s own analysis of his shift from photographer to author. What were the specific factors that influenced this shift? How and why did they force him to reconsider the act of seeing? Identify at least three quotations that helped you (and will help your readers) to chart Lopez’s mental, emotional, and physical shift from photographer to author.

3b. Consider the following quotations from Lopez’s chapter in relation to your response to 3a:

“I was pleased to see my work included in these volumes, but I realized that just as the distance between what I saw and what I was able to record was huge, so was that between what I recorded and what people saw. Seeing the printed images on the page was like finding one’s haiku published as nineteen-syllable poems.” (228)

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“The killings were a manifestation of the perversions in our age, our Kafkaesque predicaments.” (230)

“Every wildlife photographer I know can recount a story of confrontation with an art director in which he or she argued unsuccessfully for an image that told a fuller or a truer story about a particular species of animal in a layout.” (233)

“In the same way that our desk drawers and cabinet shelves slowly filled with these ‘personal’ sounds and images, we were beginning, it seemed to me, to live our lives in dissociated bits and pieces. The narrative spine of an individual life was disappearing. The order of events was becoming increasingly meaningless.” (234)

“It is more than illumination, though, more than a confirmation of one’s intuition, aesthetics, or beliefs that comes out of the perusal of such a photographer’s images. It’s regaining the feeling that one is not cut off from the wellsprings of intelligence and goodwill, of sympathy for human plight.” (238)

How do these quotations inform, develop, complicate, support, etc. your response to 3a?

3c. What do these quotations have to do with the issue of power? What do these quotations reveal about the relationship between power and perspective? What do these quotations reveal about the way that we “see”?

Part IV: Learning to See4. Return to your responses to Parts I and II. Consider these responses in light of

Lopez’s transformation from photographer to author; the respect he retains for certain photographers like Adams, Abell, and Lanting; and the relationship between power and perspective that he discusses throughout this chapter. Where can you detect evidence of power and its influence in both your individual responses and group responses to the images?

4a. Describe the process of analyzing the photograph versus telling the story of the photograph. How were the processes similar and/or different? What did one process allow that the other did not? Were you more aware of the influence of power during one process than you were during the other? How do you account for these similarities and/or differences?


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4b. Lopez concludes the chapter with:

“In different media, and from time to time, we have succeeded, I believe, in helping one another understand what is going on. We have come to see that, in some way, this is our purpose with each other.” (239)

How has viewing the photographs, reading Lopez, and examining your own perspective as viewer and writer helped your group to “understand what is going on”? What do you better understand about your own perspective through this experience? How can you help others to better “understand what is going on” around them, and what might result from this heightened awareness of perspective?

chapter


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11

Gaining�Perspective�Through�Knowledge

Once again you are about to transition from the group writing context to the individual writing experience. Just as with “The Problem of Education,” and really with most of the writing that we produce in the “real” world, individual perspective is shaped through knowledge. This knowledge is informed through conversation, study, various voices, etc.—the learning experiences that deepen our understanding of issues and allow us to interrogate and voice our own position.

It is always important to remember, however, that there are boundaries to sharing ideas. We all know that it is never acceptable when presenting a written project to represent someone else’s published ideas or writing as our own. Doing so constitutes plagiarism. Instead, you, as a writer, need to acknowledge the sources that informed your thinking and helped to establish your position and present your argument. Identifying the authors and resources that informed your thinking does not weaken your own argument; rather, you are creating a research roadmap for your readers that allows them to understand how you reached your informed perspective. This roadmap will also help them as they think about how to respond to your unique perspective or to use some of your ideas and research to help them navigate their way towards deeper understanding. So take advantage of the various opportunities to inform your own ideas, but always give credit where credit is due.

“The Problem of Perspective” should inform your work on the second formal writing assignment; it is part of the research roadmap towards your own argument regarding power and representation. Your efforts on “The Problem of Perspective,” along with engaging in the informal writing exercises included in this chapter, will help you to think through some of Barry Lopez’s major claims in “Learning to See” and to learn-by-doing as you position yourself to view his claims from different perspectives. This process of brainstorming, working with others, gathering knowledge, challenging your perspective, and thinking critically will allow you to deepen your comprehension of the subject and work towards an informed, unique, and significant thesis that will engage your audience. Take full advantage of the opportunities to work with others, practice your thinking, and test your position as you refine your understanding of Lopez’s text and think about ways to respond to his argument.


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Understanding the Assignment

When you encounter a new assignment, do not just plunge right in and start the formal writing process; rather, take the time to think about the task and the various approaches to it. Sometimes we feel extremely passionate and confident about a topic and want to start writing immediately. However, more often than not, our initial responses are not our strongest responses; indeed, they may contain some of our most promising ideas, but ideas are only as strong as their presentation. Take your time thinking about your ideas, why they are important, and how you will communicate their importance to your audience.

Remember that your response to many assignments depends on your understanding of accompanying readings. If a prompt includes a quotation taken from a longer reading, then it is not enough to respond to the quotation in isolation. It may not carry the same complexity of meaning (or even communicate the same message that it does within the context of the entire piece) when it is taken out of context. So one of the first steps to consider taking when you encounter a writing task that includes a quotation taken out of context is to locate the quotation in the reading, reread the assignment task, and reread the entire reading with the assignment task in mind. Even if you believe you know how you will respond to the prompt and are convinced that nothing will change your mind, you should engage in this or a similar process. To move ahead with a response before you fully understand the prompt is to set yourself up for a struggle and risk not responding to the assignment task.

Remember the importance of the three-way connection among critical reading, thinking, and writing. This three-way connection ensures that you take a thorough approach to the topic. Using your group work and informal writing to inform your knowledge of a subject and taking your time to understand an assignment task will help set you on the path towards a successful written project.

It is also important to budget adequate time to work on the written project. It will not matter how strong any idea you have is if you do not dedicate the time necessary to think through, plan, draft, and revise your project. Time management is one of the most difficult challenges that many new college students face; it is hard to figure out how to allow enough time for everything, both inside and outside of school, and to meet expectations and deadlines while striving to achieve certain standards. The problem-solving process should actually help you to think about time management. Not only will your group need to negotiate among different learning styles and study methods, all group members will be given the opportunity to observe different approaches to carrying out the task at hand. There is also a specific deadline that you will need to meet, and as a group, you will need to determine how to progress through the problem-solving process in such a way as to meet this deadline. Because the problem-solving process mimics, in many ways, a standard writing process—brainstorming, reflecting, drafting, revising, and editing—it helps prepare you for the individual writing assignments to follow. While every person’s writing process is unique and people enter writing courses

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with different degrees of expertise with writing, the problem-solving process reminds you of the basic parts of every writing process, allows you to observe and learn from other people’s writing processes, and gives you the time to practice time management when it comes to substantial writing projects.

Identifying Your ApproachOnce you have achieved a thorough understanding of the assignment task, think about the approach that you will take to researching and collecting evidence that will allow you to construct your argument in a convincing way. Remember that both your topic—the “what”—and significance of your topic—the “why”—are essential to establishing a convincing argument. However, equally important to the argument itself is “how” you present this argument to your audience.

� What will be your main supportive claims?

� How will these claims be organized?

� How will these claims be structured in order to guide the progression of the argument?

� Likewise, what types of evidence will be included to back up your supportive claims?

� What will be your sources of evidence?

� How will you present the information—summary, paraphrase, direct quotations, etc.?

� Will there be any other forms of data collection—surveys, interviews, etc.—necessary outside of general library research?

While your research plan needs to be flexible enough to allow for changes in direction due to discoveries, new possibilities, and unforeseen challenges, you need to begin with a plan that establishes a research foundation and will allow you to meet the deadlines. It is unlikely that you will have enough information about your subject to construct a detailed outline at this point in the drafting process; however, it will be possible for you to create a plan for the project, perhaps even identify some of the major stages of your argument and/or significant inquiry questions to guide your research. A project plan will make it easier to transition into a more formal plan for the project itself—a web, project map, formal outline, etc. Again, think ahead and anticipate significant stages in the path towards completion of your project.

Exploring with DirectionOne of the essential elements of the next formal writing assignment will be the image that you select to help make your argument about power and representation. Just like your initial


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response to the assignment task, do not rush to select your image. Another piece of advice is to resist gravitating towards some of your immediate “favorites.” It is fine to have favorite images, but you need to stop and think about why you like these images. Even if you feel passionately about them, are they the most useful images for this project? This type of questioning will direct you back to the assignment task and reemphasize the importance of understanding the assignment. If your favorite images do not help you to respond to the assignment task, and/or if it is impossible for you to remain objective about these images in such a way that you can analyze them effectively as evidence for your paper, then you should look for another option.

This search for the most appropriate image for your project raises another important point regarding the selection of a topic and construction of an argument: while you should select a topic that interests you and about which you are passionate, be careful to select a topic that will allow you to present a convincing argument that appeals to your audience. Remember, you need to think about your audience and how best to convince them of the validity of your argument as much as you need to think about the argument itself. In other words, you are not your audience, and you are not the person who needs convincing. Make sure that you choose a topic that will allow you the perspective necessary to consider the most convincing appeals to use in order to communicate with your audience.

Analyzing and SynthesizingRemember that refined arguments take time and involve a critical thinking, reading, and writing process that, more oftentimes than not, requires you to work backwards from the evidence available, to your claims, and eventually to your argument. Since writing is a recursive process, not only is this trajectory from resources to thesis indirect, but once you have a working thesis, this means that you will likely reevaluate the evidence and claims that led you to it; indeed, a paper is never done, it is only due!

Just like the eagerness to respond to an assignment task before first thinking through the task itself, you probably experience the eagerness to start working on a paper as soon as you have begun to collect information. Hopefully this excitement is due to your interest in the subject, but it might also be due to deadlines, a demanding schedule, etc. Regardless, rushing into a project is not often the best strategy for achieving eventual success. A plan for your project will begin to emerge as you analyze and organize the information that you have collected. You might have started the project thinking that a resource or specific piece of evidence would be crucial to your argument. And then, as you begin to analyze all of the information that you have collected, you might discover that this resource or piece of evidence is not key at all. Sometimes it is difficult to discard that piece of evidence that you have grown attached to for whatever reason, just like it is often difficult to cut out large chunks of writing in papers when it comes time to revise (many of us think about the amount of time and effort it took to compose a paragraph, a page, or several pages of writing and cringe when we revise

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it out of our final projects); however, this is why the writing process is a recursive process, and this is how we add to our knowledge-base and experience as writers. Similar to the discussion, collaboration, and learning process that take place in group settings, such as a problem-solving group, as writers, we learn to communicate with ourselves as we explore our resources, consider audience, think about presentation, and make decisions as writers.

Analyzing your resources will take time, but budgeting this time and committing to the process will ensure that your writing process is efficient, satisfying, and ultimately successful. Again, as you are analyzing these resources, your argument and project will begin to take shape. This is when it is time to make a concerted effort to synthesize your resources, pull together your information, and think carefully about how everything will work together within the context of your project. This is where holes in your argument will become most evident, and you will begin to determine how to conduct additional research in order to strengthen the paper. The major stages of your argument will also become more apparent as you synthesize resources and begin to recognize how you might transition from one stage of your argument to the next.

Refining Your FocusAfter completing your rough draft, it is wise to solicit feedback from an instructor, tutor or peer. Considering all the hard work that you have put into the project and how “close” you are to the paper, it is often difficult to maintain the objectivity necessary to reflect critically on your work. Seeking feedback from a “fresh set of eyes” is always beneficial.

It is likely that your writing instructor will work time into the project for feedback—instructor and/or peer. If this is the case, then you will know exactly how to plan for this activity and produce as much material possible within the scope of the assignment to gain productive feedback. Just think about what it’s like when you are asked to comment on a project and the author only gives you a small portion of the project about which to comment—this is not an easy thing to do! Instead, take advantage of the opportunity to gain feedback on your writing. Use this opportunity to ask questions, clarify areas of uncertainty with respect to your own writing and the feedback you receive, and learn from your readers’ responses. Also, if peer review is scheduled as part of the project calendar, then it is likely that you will be reading your peers’ writing. As when you work in your problem-solving groups, take advantage of this opportunity to learn from your peers’ approaches to the assignment task.

Oftentimes, after receiving feedback from readers, it becomes clear that substantial revisions are in order. Maybe you expected this sort of feedback, or perhaps it comes as a surprise; regardless, the need for global revisions is not a sign of failure. In fact, all writers learn to accept this as part of any writing process. While you may not agree with all of the feedback that you receive, it is important that if you decide not to implement some suggestions, you are able to articulate why you reached this decision. At times, while your responses might be:


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Informal

Personal

1. Locate a photograph that someone you know has taken. Make sure that the photographer is available to discuss the image with you (in person or otherwise). When you, the viewer, examine this photograph, what comes to mind? What does this photograph signify to you?

2. Now, discuss the photograph with the photographer. Inquire into the intent behind the photograph. What was the photographer trying to capture through this photograph? What did the photographer desire to capture for him/herself by taking this photograph and/or what did he/she want to communicate to others through this image?

3. Compare your responses to questions #1 and #2. What did you learn through this pre-analysis and follow-up conversation? What about your pre-analysis was affirmed and challenged through the conversation? What was most surprising to you and the photographer about this process? Identify the intersections between your experience analyzing this image and discussing it with the photographer and the experience that Lopez discusses in About This Life as he negotiates between the role of photographer and writer.

Media

1. In About This Life, Barry Lopez writes:

I view any encounter with a wild animal in its own territory as a gift, an opportunity to sense the real animal, not the zoo creature, the TV creature, the advertising creature. (232)


“Because I don’t have time” or “I don’t want to,” the reality is that these are not viable responses. If you are able to explain why you have refused a suggestion for feedback or reconsidered ways of addressing the reader’s concerns, then you likely have a strong sense of your argument, plan for the project, and are able to respond to the reader’s concerns but in a way that works better for you as a writer. However, considering and learning from feedback is a way to better ensure that your project is successful when it is released for general consumption.

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Locate an image of the “zoo creature, the TV creature, the advertising creature.” Describe this image and explain the message that it communicates to the viewer. How does the context in which this animal is placed, the positioning of this animal, the use of this animal determine how we view it?

2. Lopez goes on to compare commercial representations of animals to commercial representations of people and discusses the ways in which these images are prepared for public consumption lead to stereotyping and misleading representations of wildlife. The point that he is making pertains to both the subject of these images and consumers. Why is it important to question this representation for both the sake of the subject and consumers?

3. At the end “Learning to See,” Lopez discusses ways in which various people involved in representing the world can work together in order to “[help] one another understand what is going on.” What do you think he means by this statement? How do you think representations of animals and people can become more helpful in informing the way that individuals “see”? How do you think that viewers can begin to reclaim and inform the viewing process?

Creative

1. Assume the role of a photographer. Watch for a moment that you want to capture and visually represent for others. When the moment comes, attempt to capture it. This might be a spontaneous moment like Lopez’s polar bear, or it might be the type of moment, experience, or phenomenon that you desire to capture as an image like Lopez’s project on light. Once you capture this moment, describe what satisfies you about the image and explain what the image lacks.

2. Now mentally return to the moment and attempt to recreate it in words. After describing the moment on paper, explain what satisfies you about the description and what it lacks.

3. Compare the image and the written description of the moment. What does the image provide that the written description does not and vice-versa? From your experience as both a photographer and writer, what are the challenges of negotiating between the two perspectives? After occupying these two roles at least temporarily, revisit Lopez’s statement (Media, #3) that people involved in representing the world can work together in order to “[help] one another understand what is going on.” Based on your experience, how can


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these different perspectives on the world better inform our understanding of the various complexities we encounter?

Formal

Formal�Paper:��Capturing�the�Moment

Background: You will use the knowledge, experience, and ideas gained through “The Problem of Perspective” to inform your work on this paper. “The Problem of Perspective” and your informal writing have given you the opportunity to think through individual and group responses to the relationship between power and representation. Just as Barry Lopez argues that images can be manipulated by the photographer in order to present a certain message or convey an idea, your group experience has likely revealed how one’s subject position and personal history can influence how somebody views an image. A collaborative exchange, like the one you have experienced, can reveal a lot about your own perspective and challenge you to think about issues in new ways. This is what Lopez came to realize as he moved from a focus on photography to writing, and he challenges his readers to consider doing the same through his account of his own change of perspective.

Assignment�Task: In About This Life, Barry Lopez claims:

With the modern emphasis on the genius of the individual artist, however, and with the arrival of computer imaging, authority […] now more often lies with the photographer. This has become true to such an extent that the reversal that’s occurred—the photographer, not the subject, is in charge—has caused the rules of evidence to be changed in courts of law; and it has foisted upon an unwitting public a steady stream, for example, of fabricated images of wildlife. (226)

Consider carefully the statement that Lopez makes regarding the shift in control, influence, and power from the subject being photographed to the photographer taking the photograph. Think beyond the focus of Lopez’s specific claim—the photographer and subject being photographed—and think about the larger argument that he is making regarding methods of representation and the various forms of power and control that influence representation. Choose a method of visual representation—an advertisement, a published photograph, a calendar image, etc.—and use your careful analysis of this image to present an argument about representation in response to Lopez’s claim above.

Make sure that you choose your visual object carefully as it will provide the lens through which you focus your argument. Lopez uses wildlife to focus his

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argument; he even narrows his focus to one single encounter with a polar bear while conducting research in the Artic to make a claim about how visual and written representation are different and allow him to confront systems of power and control in different ways. Just like Lopez, you need to narrow your focus through an appropriate evidential lens in order to present your larger argument about representation.

Use your problem-solving experience with “The Problem of Perspective” to inform your response to this assignment task. You have already conducted quite a bit of preliminary thinking about representation through your work on “The Problem of Perspective.” Use this foundational thinking and your practice analyzing images to work through this assignment task. Critical thinking, careful analysis, and meaningful evidence should allow you to construct, present, and support an informed argument in response to Lopez’s claim.

As you work on your formal paper:

� Do not underestimate the importance of the visual object you choose to focus on for this paper. Choose this object carefully as it provides the lens for your argument. Your analysis of this object will allow your audience to “see” and understand your argument. Just like with Lopez, this will be an argument about something larger and more far-reaching than the object itself, but the use of this lens will make your argument more comprehensible for your audience.

� Consider all of the essential elements of a carefully constructed argument: a clear thesis, logical organization, smooth transitions between claims and evidence, and carefully analyzed evidence that shows your reader how you have thought critically about this evidence and are using it to support your argument.

� Remember that your audience will need assistance reading the visual evidence that you present just as much as the textual evidence you use. Help them to understand how you are analyzing this visual object through your use of key terminology for analyzing visual images discussed in the preceding chapter.

� As always, save enough time to collect preliminary feedback on your project and proofread carefully!


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Part4Negotiating�Among�Multiple�Resources

chapter


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12

Gauging Problem Complexity

As you know, new layers of learning, and hence complexity, are added to each problem as you move through this book and your writing course. Each new layer is designed to help you become a stronger and more experienced writer as you tackle new challenges, gain additional knowledge, and become more comfortable discussing difficult texts and issues.

For “The Problem of Education,” you began with a subject with which all of us have some degree of experience: education. You were asked to begin the problem-solving process based on this experience and what you already knew about education and then develop this understanding through group work and additional research. “The Problem of Perspective” added visual elements for your consideration. This problem dealt with the issue of perspective and how our perspective can be altered based on what we see and the medium that we use to communicate what and how we see. Again, you brought past experience analyzing visuals to this problem as well as your initial individual impressions that were used to initiate thinking and discussion about the images. The next problem continues your work with visual literacy and complicates the critical reading process by introducing additional visual elements that come with the move from photographs to comics.

Remember that what looks familiar, straightforward, or even “easy” on the surface might be more complex as you examine it. Because comics are something that people are quick to associate with younger readers or categorize as “light” reading, the potential complexity of these texts is often overlooked. Just consider the thought that you put into analyzing the images for “The Problem of Perspective.” Your initial impressions were likely easy to generate, but then as you moved into discussion with your group, connected the photographs with the reading, and then began to read the images more closely, the analytical process grew more complex. Grappling with the images through the problem-solving process likely led to new ideas and possible avenues for exploration unanticipated at the outset of the process.


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Gauging Group Understanding of the Problem

With problem-solving experience under your belt and the awareness that this process requires more time and yields more complexity as you advance through it, you know that it is important to take time to read through the problem and discuss its content and requirements as a group before launching into the problem-solving process itself. While the first problem introduced you to the importance of critical thinking to the problem-solving process and emphasized the connection between critical reading and writing, and the second problem continued to focus on the three-way connection among critical thinking, reading, and writing and exhibited how analytical techniques may be applied to visual as well as written texts, this third problem asks you to apply this experience and knowledge to your negotiation between visual and written texts and application of research.

Establishing a Problem-Solving Plan: Organization and Roles

You now know the steps needed to establish an action plan that gives you sufficient time and outlines group expectations. You also know that the problems are designed in such a way that dividing the task into segments and then piecing together the response is not possible. With this in mind, think about how your group will approach the next problem. There are some parts of the problem that ask you to write individual responses and then discuss these as a group—similar to the process that you engaged in for both “The Problem of Education” and “The Problem of Perspective”—and there are other parts that will require you to conduct outside research and apply these discoveries to your responses. How will your group meet all of these requirements during the allotted time?

As with all the problems and individual work that you have or will encounter both in this course and others, you need to consider the class time devoted to the problem-solving process and how you will use it. Each problem and group project will bring with it a new set of requirements regardless of how well you know all the group members. Thus it is important to outline expectations and timelines so that the problem-solving process progresses as seamlessly as possible.

Establishing a Problem-Solving Plan: Managing Resources

This is the most complicated problem that you have encountered so far this semester in terms of requirements. You have multiple readings, a complex visual that combines images and text, and a research requirement. Again, these elements build on one another, so it is important to think about what each contributes to the problem and how together they all contribute to your understanding of the problem task. While each group member needs to be involved throughout the problem-solving process, once you all have a solid understanding of the overall problem and the direction in which you would like to proceed, certain individuals may

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be responsible for pulling together parts of the problem. Perhaps one group member will be responsible for taking notes during the debriefing process for part one, compiling individual responses, and generating a written group perspective. Maybe another group member will be responsible for compiling the research generated by the group’s work on part three of the problem. The bottom line is that this problem will require the group to think about how to cover each aspect of it and pull together and present coherently the group’s work on this project.

Establishing a Problem-Solving Plan: Analyzing and Synthesizing

For this problem, you will need to analyze your personal response to the comics, group response, reading of supporting material, and research.

� What happens as these layers are added?

� Do these layers alter your initial response? And what happens as you analyze these individual layers?

� For example, does closer examination of a piece of research teach you something unexpected?

� Does such closer examination actually reveal that perhaps the piece of research is not as valuable to your understanding of the problem as you initially suspected? Or does consideration of a secondary source such as the selection from Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics actually challenge and/or alter your thinking about your subject under study?

These are important questions to ask yourself as you deepen your understanding of the problem. It is very likely that your initial impression will change as you become better informed through your study of supporting resources.

As discussed in Part Two, analysis (at times referred to as “close” or “critical” reading) is a cognitive activity that requires practice. Just like other parts of your body, your brain needs exercise and practice in order to sharpen its ability to analyze material. It is not enough to read through material or even to take notes; rather, analysis, in this case, means deconstructing a textual representation of an idea, concept, and/or subject. How does Scott McCloud, for example, present various visual elements in the selection from his text? Does he just tell the reader what “icons” mean within the context of comics, or does he adopt an approach that combines visual and written text in order to both show and tell? Obviously, he chooses the latter, but just observing that he does so is only the first step in analyzing this resource. After you and other group members make this important observation, then you need to think more deeply about the impact of this choice. How does this choice impact your understanding of the element? How then does your understanding of the element affect your comprehension


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of Art Spiegelman’s comic? Remember that every textual representation involves some sort of choice on the part of the author towards impacting audience understanding. Rarely does something make it to the printed page that does not carry the mark of the author’s larger mission or objective.

As your mind becomes more practiced at careful and deliberate analysis of resources, you will likely find that your notes on a resource expand with this deepened awareness of your subject matter. Collecting information is one layer of research, and analyzing this collected information is quite another. Expect your material to at least double in volume as you analyze your primary and secondary resources and all of your supporting research. Of course, when this occurs, you and your group members are going to find yourselves faced with a lot of material that needs to be synthesized in order to best represent your group’s response to the problem, giving voice to all group members’ ideas, responding to all parts of the problem, and organizing your problem write-up in order to showcase your strongest and most interesting ideas. How might this be done?

When available, technology is your friend when it comes time to synthesize your material. Not only can technology make it easier to communicate with your group members outside of class time, it provides an effective repository for information and ways for you to manipulate and organize material in order to respond to the assigned project task and meet the needs of your group. Inventory what is available to your group members when it comes to technology:

� How many group members have regular access to a computer?

� Does your instructor use a classroom management system and are discussion forums and/or group areas made available through this system?

� Is simple email a viable tool?

� Could the group create its own group management system by utilizing such sites as Google Docs or Doodle?

� If computers are not readily accessible to people outside of class, what about text or instant messaging? Is this an option for at least staying connected and making important decisions to help expedite discussion when the group meets face-to-face within the classroom?

When it comes to collecting and sharing information, decide on a low-technological or high-technological method of organization. Think about what your group will need in order to disseminate information to members, make material available, and organize the material in order to generate written responses. It might seem tempting to save time by not pausing to organize materials, but this will likely cause you to lose time in the future when your group is scrambling to find a piece of information or determine how to arrange and present

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information in a problem write-up. It is worth the effort to generate a plan and remain organized throughout the problem-solving process; doing so, often alleviates frustration and stress. It is always possible to revise an organizational strategy if it is not working, but it is more difficult to invent one mid-process.

Establishing a Problem-Solving Plan: Refining Your Focus

Synthesizing information is just the first step towards determining and refining your overall focus for the problem write-up. Indeed, problem solving is an exploratory process; the problems are not designed to encourage a predictable or definite response. But even though these problems are about exploration, there comes a time when you will need to focus your response in order to respond to the assignment task and produce a problem write-up to hand in to your instructor for a grade. Your group will need to determine how it wants to present its discoveries to your instructor based on any additional guidelines or requirements he or she has presented.

Considering the way that the problems are presented in the text, the way you present the problem write-up is really up to your group members. While it is expected that the group will respond to all parts of the problem, does this mean that you need to move through it in consecutive order? Not necessarily, unless your instructor has put forward this expectation as part of the assignment task. Moving through the problem and addressing each part of the problem in consecutive order is one way to ensure that your group responds to all parts of the problem, but it does not always show how the parts of the problem work together as a whole. Think about constructing transitions between paragraphs in a traditional, formal paper. What goes into a transition? Typically a transition moves a reader from one idea to another or from one stage of an argument or idea to the next stage. A writer’s focus, when constructing a transition, is often how to conclude one stage of an idea or argument and introduce a new one. Often the trick is how to avoid an “abrupt” transition and escort your reader into the new territory. As your group contemplates how to present its research and synthesized ideas, think about how to structure your response. It might be possible to structure the problem write-up (again, as long as it responds to all parts of the assignment task) like an essay. Or perhaps your group feels like creativity and experimentation with form and content are the best ways of expressing its focus. Sometimes this shows critical attention directed towards the reading. For example, a problem write-up that both “shows and tells” in response to “The Problem of Comprehending Violence” might demonstrate an acute awareness of both McCloud’s and Spiegelman’s use of content and structure to present an argument through both “showing and telling.” In other words, your group might consider ways of both “showing and telling” by experimenting with narrative structure, incorporating text and images, and combining textual genres to best support your argument. Just keep in mind that experimental ideas should be verified with your instructor, and that if an experimental, problem write-up structure is acceptable, that your evidence needs to support your claims and that the problem write-up needs to respond to the assignment task.


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Establishing a Problem-Solving Plan: Documentation

As you have probably come to discover through your work in this course and your educational history, writing is hard work. It takes time to put together a thoughtful and well-supported argument. Coming up with original ideas takes deep, critical thinking and careful research. These ideas then need to be support by a well-structured argument that demonstrates the time that you have put into planning and research through a combination of clear, supportive claims and a variety of convincing evidence. Anticipating potential counter-arguments and considering how best to appeal to a broad audience means not only seeking out information that will help support your argument, but also familiarizing yourself with and often contemplating ways of incorporating information into your argument that demonstrates awareness of these counter-arguments. Again, this takes time and a lot of hard work.

Just like you and your group members desire to be acknowledged for your hard work, published authors desire to be recognized as well. The term “published” does not just refer to the authors of the books you find on library shelves or in bookstores; a published author is anyone and/or any entity or organization that has released work into the public sphere. Hence, if you refer to any work that is not your own and/or material that is not common knowledge—dates, facts, etc.—then you must acknowledge your source. Furthermore, if you want to refer to any writing that is not your own, then you must acknowledge your source. As you know from earlier discussions in this text, material that is quoted directly from a source and used in your problem write-up should be presented as a direct�quotation—introduced by a signal phrase, placed in quotation marks, and concluded with acknowledgement of your source (the format varies depending upon the documentation style that you are using). A paraphrase is a restatement, in your own words, of material presented in another source and is usually the same length as that which is presented in the source you are using. Just like when you quote something directly, paraphrasing requires that you signal the presentation of this published material and acknowledge your original source. Unlike a paraphrase, a summary is shorter in length than the presentation of material in the original source; however, as with direct quotations and paraphrasing, you must acknowledge the source of your information that has been summarized in your document.

These documentation requirements pertain to all published work in hardcopy, electronic, or virtual form. If you find your material through a web resource, and it extends beyond established fact and common knowledge, you must acknowledge your source. This pertains to published, visual texts as well. If you decide to use a published image in your project, you must acknowledge the source of your image. As discussed throughout this text, no evidence, not even a visual image, will “speak for itself.” Just as you must walk your reader through the interpretative process for each piece of evidence, including the source of the evidence, you must contextualize your visual evidence—introduce it, explain it, and document it. If you are the source behind this evidence—if you took the photograph or drew an image, for example—you must let your reader know this as well.

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Examples of Direct Quotation, Paraphrasing, Summary, Works Cited and Visual EvidenceThe following provides examples of MLA and APA documentation guidelines for quoting directly, paraphrasing, summarizing, and documenting visual text. You should refer to an available documentation handbook for examples of other types of documentation strategies such as Chicago, Columbia Online Style, etc. All of the material has been taken from the first chapter of Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics.

Direct�Quotation

Reminder: When using a partial, complete, or block quotation in your document, be careful not to overlook the importance of a signal� phrase that introduces the quotation to your audience. Also, quoted material does not “speak for itself.” You need to contextualize this material for your reader, and when necessary, analyze the material for your reader. While you have had time to think about the evidence and what it will contribute to your argument, your audience needs to understand how you are using the material and why it is relevant to your overall argument.

Partial�Quotation:

A partial quotation consists of words, phrases, or a portion of a sentence.

MLA: Scott McCloud notes that people do not recognize the true value of comics because they often regard the genre “too narrowly” (3).

APA: Scott McCloud (1993) notes that people do not recognize the true value of comics because they often regard the genre “too narrowly” (p. 3).

Complete�Quotation:

A complete quotation consists of one or two sentences integrated into a paragraph.

MLA: In the first chapter of Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud describes his first impressions of comics as a young child, “Comics were those bring, colorful magazines filled with bad art, stupid stories and guys in tights” (2).

APA: In the first chapter of Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud (1993) describes his first impressions of comics as a young child, “Comics were those bring, colorful magazines filled with bad art, stupid stories and guys in tights” (p. 2).

Block�Quotation:

A block quotation is literally a “block” of quoted material that consists of four or more typed lines. A block quotation is set off from the rest of the text in “block” form. Unlike with


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a partial or complete quotation, you do not use quotation marks with a block quotation. Generally, you will use a colon to separate the block quotation from your narrative, and you indent the entire block quotation. Do not forget the importance of signaling this material for your audience and interpreting it for them either in detail if necessary or highlighting and reinforcing essential information.

MLA: McCloud’s conclusion to his first chapter of Understanding Comics does not offer a definitive explanation of comics, their role in history, or their role for future generations of readers. Instead, he emphasizes the questions surrounding this genre and encourages his readers to participate in the “great debate”:

Our attempts to define comics are an on-going�process which won’t end anytime soon. A new generation will no doubt reject whatever this one finally decides to accept and try once more to re-invent�comics. And so they should. Here’s to the great�debate! (23; his emphasis)

APA: McCloud’s (1993) conclusion to his first chapter of Understanding Comics does not offer a definitive explanation of comics, their role in history, or their role for future generations of readers. Instead, he emphasizes the questions surrounding this genre and encourages his readers to participate in the “great debate”:

Our attempts to define comics are an on-going�process which won’t end anytime soon. A new generation will no doubt reject whatever this one finally decides to accept and try once more to re-invent�comics. And so they should. Here’s to the great�debate! (p. 23; his emphasis)

Paraphrase

Reminder: When paraphrasing material from a source, it is important to signal to your reader when you transition from your ideas to a restatement, in your own words, of material from the resource to which you are referring. Just like when you quote directly from a source, you must give credit to the author and make sure that your reader understands how and why you are using this material to support your overall argument.

MLA: The genre of comics has been evolving for hundreds of years. Connections may be made with images that appeared in caves, tombs, and on tapestries. Scott McCloud, an expert on the genre, points to the Bayeux Tapestry that represents the Norman Conquest that begun in 1066. He emphasizes that the images presented on the tapestry and their structure that cause the viewer to scan the tapestry from left to right anticipates both the content and form of future comics (Understanding Comics, 12-13).

*Note: The book’s title, Understanding Comics, is used as part of the parenthetical citation if more than one source from the author, Scott McCloud, is referred to

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in this paper. If more than one source is used, then the reader of the paper will understand which source to look up on the Works Cited page included at the end of your paper.

APA: The genre of comics has been evolving for hundreds of years. Connections may be made with images that appeared in caves, tombs, and on tapestries. Scott McCloud (1993), an expert on the genre, points to the Bayeux Tapestry that represents the Norman Conquest that begun in 1066. He emphasizes that the images presented on the tapestry and their structure that cause the viewer to scan the tapestry from left to right anticipates both the content and form of future comics (12-13).

Summary

Reminder: A summary allows you to refer to a large amount of information by using a compact area of your paper. Like paraphrased material, a summary is written in your own words. Unlike paraphrased material that is material restated in your own words and which occupies approximately the same amount of space in your document, summarized material is a much more concise statement than what appears in the original source. Using quoted material and paraphrasing in conjunction with a summary of a chapter, article, or longer work allows you to offer more details about the resource and clarify claims for your audience.

MLA: The genre of comics is a much more complex genre than people might think. It has a long history and has been studied and experimented with by artists and intellectuals alike. Scott McCloud makes this argument in the first chapter of his book Understanding Comics. In this chapter he introduces his own personal history understanding comics and aligns his own reluctance to treat the genre seriously when he first encountered it with the general response to comics as a literary genre. He shows how his own understanding of the genre evolved as he better understood its history and social and cultural relevance, and at the end of the chapter leads into a more in-depth study of the genre by embracing the “debate” surrounding the genre and its intellectual value and invites the audience to partake in this debate (2-23).

APA: The genre of comics is a much more complex genre than people might think. It has a long history and has been studied and experimented with by artists and intellectuals alike. Scott McCloud (1993) makes this argument in the first chapter of his book Understanding Comics. In this chapter he introduces his own personal history understanding comics and aligns his own reluctance to treat the genre seriously when he first encountered it with the general response to comics as a literary genre. He shows how his own understanding of the genre evolved as he better understood its history and social and cultural relevance, and at the end of the chapter leads into a more in-depth study of the genre by embracing the “debate” surrounding the genre and its intellectual value and invites the audience to partake in this debate (chap. 1).


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Works�Cited�Page

Reminder: A works cited page includes an alphabetized list of resources cited in your paper. These citations might be connected with quoted, paraphrased, or summarized material. All of the resources cited in your paper should appear on your works cited page. Not only does this part of your paper continue to give credit where credit is due to the published author of the intellectual property presented in your paper, but it also collects all of your resources in one convenient place in your paper. This makes it easy for your reader to find the sources of the citations in your paper and locate the source in case further research/reading is desired.

MLA:McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: Harper

Perennial, 1993.

APA:McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding comics: The invisible art. New York: Harper

Perennial.

Visual�Evidence

Visual evidence may be used in the body of a paper to support an argument and individual claims. Just like with textual evidence, visual evidence needs to be introduced to the audience, analyzed, and properly cited within the body of the paper and on the works cited page. Take for example the first panel used by Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics:

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MLAFig. 1. Panel 1, drawing by Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (New York, 1993; 2)

APAFigure 1. Panel from opening grid for Chapter 1. Reprinted from Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud, 1993, p. 2. Copyright 1993 by Harper Perennial. Reprinted with permission.

Remember that evidence will not speak for itself; rather, you must analyze the material for the reader and explain why you are using it. In the panel above, the black and white drawing, the introduction of the narrator, and the details are all important for explaining how and why the image has been included in the paper. Images can be very useful in papers when they are well selected and used carefully.

Visual�Evidence�and�the�Works�Cited�Page

Refer to the preceding entries for proper citation of Scott McCloud’s text on a works cited page.


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Problem #3The Problem of Comprehending Violence

Readings: Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Pages: 2-9,

29-33, 58-59, 66-73, 99-102, 153-161, 192, 212-213.

Art Spiegelman, In the Shadow of No Towers. New York: Random House, 2004. Pages: Introduction and Plate 10.

The Problem

All of us lived through the events of September 11, 2001 and were impacted by them in different ways. Our individual responses to the attacks depended (and still depend) upon our proximity to the attacks; religious, political, and cultural views; personal history; experiences following 9/11, etc. This problem asks you to consider one man’s unique response to 9/11 and to explore the effect of this response on you as an audience member and witness to the events and consequences of 9/11.

Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers uses the genre of comics to represent and respond to 9/11. His work is political and controversial. His response to the events of 9/11 seeks to navigate a complex territory of power relations and to create a space for his voice to be heard and perspective to be recognized. This voice and perspective belong to one individual witness to these events but speak for a much larger sector of humanity.

Part of the challenge of dealing with difficult material is to find a way to approach the subject matter and, when appropriate, to make that material accessible to a larger audience. Spiegelman accomplishes this In the Shadow of No Towers, and this problem asks you to navigate the complex territory of the event through the unique perspective of this author-artist. You will reflect on the experience of this journey through the course of the problem as you reconsider your own responses to the traumatic events of 9/11 and reexamine them through the context of Spiegelman’s text and additional research.

Part I: A Preliminary Look1. Read Spiegelman’s introduction before examining the selected plate from his book In

the Shadow of No Towers. As individuals, respond to the following questions in writing:

i. What words and phrases stood out to you on your first reading?

ii. How do you feel after reading this introduction?

iii. What do you agree and/or disagree with in this introduction?

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iv. What do you expect to encounter in terms of Spiegelman’s visual and verbal response to the events of 9/11?

1a. Share your responses with the group. What are the major areas of consensus and dissensus in the group with respect to both Spiegelman’s introduction and expectations regarding his response to the events of 9/11?

1b. Why do you think these are the major areas of consensus and dissensus? Are the issues political? Are controversial events and perspectives foregrounded? Are responses emotionally charged and/or motivated?

1c. Look at Plate 10. Just as you did for question #1, as individuals respond to the following questions in writing:

i. What images and text did you notice during your first reading?

ii. How do you feel after examining this plate?

iii. Were you surprised that Spiegelman chose this genre in order to represent his response to the events of 9/11? Why or why not?

1d. Share your responses with the group. Again, what are the major areas of consensus and dissensus in your group?

1e. What questions does your group have about Spiegelman’s work? What seems unclear and/or confusing?

Part II: Adding Context and Reading Closely2. Read the selections from McCloud’s Understanding Comics. In these selections,

McCloud introduces his project that combines content and form in order to both make comics more accessible to a larger audience of readers and present an argument about the unique complexity of comics as a vehicle of cultural communication. He communicates with his audience through a combination of showing and telling in an effort to, to use Barry Lopez’s language, help it “learn to see.” In the selections excerpted from his book, McCloud discusses icons, sequence, time, the relationship between pictures and words, and color and how these elements are used in comics. As a group, define these elements in your own words based on the information gained by reading McCloud’s work:

i. icons

ii. sequence

iii. time

iv. the relationship between pictures and words


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2a. Now conduct a close reading of Spiegelman’s work using these four elements. Think carefully about how each element is used and the effect of the element. Consider details, and reflect on how elements are combined, emphasized, deemphasized, eliminated, etc. to deliver an impactful message to the audience.

2b. What message do you think Spiegelman is trying to send through this segment of his work? What is his argument?

2c. Which method of argumentative delivery do you think is more effective: Spiegelman’s use of text in his introduction or the combination of images and words in his graphic representation? Why?

2d. Return to your response to 1e. Which questions have been answered? What questions about Spiegelman’s work remain unanswered? What new questions have emerged?

2e. What is the effect of these questions? As a member of Spiegelman’s audience, how do these questions impact your viewing experience? How might this questioning be considered a constructed, and hence intentional element of the viewing experience itself?

Part III: Research3. Likely, several of your questions pertain to some of the content of the plate and

information about the artist himself. Just as Aaron Rosen asks in his review of In the Shadow of No Towers published in The Jewish Quarterly, “Why is it that Spiegelman finds classic comic strips in particular such a compelling source for narrating the story of 9/11” (http://www.jewishquarterly.org/issuearchive/article2dab.html?articleid=110)? Who is “Hapless Hooligan,” and why does Spiegelman use this figure to represent himself, or at least his perspective? In “The Comic Supplement” included as part of In the Shadow of No Towers, Spiegelman writes about his state of mind following 9/11 and his turn to “old comic strips”:

The only cultural artifacts that could get past my defenses to flood my eyes and brain with something other than images of burning towers were old comic strips; vital, unpretentious ephemera from the optimistic dawn of the 20th century. That they were made with so much skill and verve but never intended to last past the day they appeared in the newspaper gave them poignancy; they were just right for an end-of-the-world moment.

This begins to shed some light on Spiegelman’s choice of character but still leaves the reader with questions: Who was Hapless Hooligan? What was appealing about this particular character? What made them “last past the day they appeared in the newspaper?” Etc. Choose at least three research topics from the list below. As a group,

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summarize your research findings and explain how this research begins to answer some of your questions generated by Spiegelman’s work:

i. Art Spiegelman

ii. Maus

iii. Hapless Hooligan

iv. W. H. Auden’s “September 1, 1939”

v. 2004 Republican Presidential Convention

Part IV: Power and Comics4. This problem has asked you to think critically about one man’s response to an extremely

traumatic experience through an unconventional genre—comics. You have reflected on your immediate personal reactions, thought through these reactions, analyzed the genre of comics, deconstructed Spiegelman’s text, and researched some of the questions generated through Spiegelman’s work. What do you think that Spiegelman’s choice of genre has to do with issues of “power”?

In order to respond to this, think carefully about some of the following questions: What does 9/11 have to do with power? Who exercised power and who was rendered powerless during the attacks? How were Americans positioned? How were New Yorkers positioned? Why might someone in the middle of this present moment of terror and acutely aware of a history of terror associated with the Holocaust and his father’s experiences during World War II respond to this terror and the power connected with it in this way? What does power have to do with the individual and his or her perspective, expression, and action?


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13


As you already know, it is essential to understand the assignment that you have been asked to work through as a learner before starting to work on the assignment itself. Just as you must take the time to read through and contemplate a group problem before you begin to generate your group action plan, you must think through your individual writing assignment. Rely on the strategies that you have used and practiced within your group context. For all of the problems so far, you have read through the problem as a group, discussed the parts that are unclear and/or about which you have questions, and generated an action plan for how you intend to complete the group project. Do the same as you tackle this individual assignment.

While you have already come to understand the cross-over between group problem-solving and your own writing process by reading this book, it is important to keep this relationship in mind and to use this knowledge to develop and practice your process as a writer. Group problem solving requires careful listening, observation, and strong communication skills. It is necessary to have a strong sense of how you function as an individual writer and also a willingness to “revise” your approach to problem solving as you develop a more expansive and often complete understanding of the problem through your discussion with others. The problem solving process reveals that there is more than one way to approach a problem or project and that careful reading, discussion, and analysis of the task often causes us to revise our approach to a project by providing us with a more thorough understanding of the task.

When you receive your assignment task for this individual project, keep in mind that careful reading and thinking, even discussion of the assignment task with others (the instructor, peers, friends, family, etc.), will often provide you with a more in-depth understanding of the task. Give yourself time to discuss the assignment task with others and to think about it deeply by yourself. We communicate with others in direct and indirect ways throughout each day, but we also communicate with ourselves as we think about the day’s events, problem-solving, successes, challenges, etc. Communicate with yourself as you tackle this assignment task. Ask yourself questions, make sure that you understand all aspects of it, and read and reread. Know how you plan to tackle the assignment task based on a thorough understanding of the task at hand before you start the research and writing process!


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Understanding the Reading and Resources

Just as it is important to understand the main assignment task, it is essential to take the time necessary to thoroughly understand the assigned reading and resources for the assignment. Likely, by the time the assignment task is distributed by your instructor, you will have had the opportunity to explore the topic under study. If you look ahead and read the formal assignment task for this section of the text, you will see that it builds on the experience and knowledge you gained by working through “The Problem of Comprehending Violence.” Learning, just like writing, is a process, and you are expected to use knowledge gained through various assignment tasks and learning experiences to help you succeed on various individual projects. Hence, as you begin to read through the material for this project, apply the knowledge that you gained by working through the various informal and formal assignments and individual and group projects presented in this text.

After you have taken the time to read and think about the assignment task carefully, ask questions, and explore strategies on your own and through conversation with others, consider doing the following:

� Identify and reread some of the resources with which you are already familiar;

� Reread previous research conducted and work completed for other projects;

� Review notes and take new ones on the research and work being reviewed;

� Begin to generate an original argument from this knowledge-base;

� Begin new research based on this refined focus;

� As your research dictates, revise your argument as you collect additional information and refine your focus;

� Take careful notes and adhere to an organizational plan and time line that works for your research and writing process;

� Begin the drafting process;

� Save enough time to seek input from others and to revise—globally and locally—thoroughly before preparing your draft to turn in for a grade!

Understanding Your Approach: Managing Resources, Analyzing and Synthesizing, Revising, and Proofreading Carefully

One of the biggest mistakes that students often make when working on individual writing projects is simply not looking ahead and making sure that they have enough time to work

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through the assignment task, create a first edition of their project, and revise! Global revision, especially, takes a lot of time, much more time than local revisions and editing, and depending on your individual writing process, you may need more or less time than some of your classmates to produce a “final” edition that you intend to turn in to your instructor for a grade. If you are a writer who relies upon free-writing to generate some of your ideas, then you may need more time for global revisions than someone who engages in more gradual research and structured planning like outlining. But again, this may not be the case depending on how you free-write or how you outline. The important thing is that you take the time to get to know, understand, and practice your writing process, a writing process that will very likely change and develop with time. This means, of course, that you will be assessing your pace, procedure, and process as a writer quite regularly, a practice that will continue to help you hone your writing skills.

No matter what type of writing process you use, you will need to be able to negotiate among multiple resources, analyze and read resources and your own writing carefully, synthesize the information that you have collected and present it in an original and coherent way, revise both globally and locally, and edit your work. As you have probably already realized, these practices are important for all of the work you will do during your career in higher education, in your professional life, and in your personal life as well. All of these practices take time and planning, and they all will serve you well as you undertake tasks—writing, research, and otherwise—throughout your multi-faceted and constantly developing life. Understanding your learning process means much more than success in a college writing course.


Informal

Personal

1. As Art Speigelman’s graphic novel shows, September 11, 2001 had a profound impact on everyone. However, Speigelman’s account also reveals that a person’s history, cultural background, physical proximity to the events, personal connection with the events, etc. all impact the way that one perceives and processes a catastrophically violent event. Think back to where you were when you heard about, witnessed, and/or experienced the events of 9/11. What can you recall about your feelings at the time? What do you remember thinking?

If you do not feel comfortable discussing the events of 9/11 and your feelings and thinking connected with this moment in history, think generally about


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how you respond to reports of violence. How do you feel? How do you react? What forms of violence impact you the most?

The point of this exercise is to try to recall your immediate reaction to the violence of the moment. Try to recall the moment that you heard about the event and then free-write in order to try to describe that moment.

2. After you have recorded your immediate response to the moment, slow down a bit, and think about how you began to process this experience. What happened to the immediacy of the moment as you began to think about it in more depth and detail? What pre-existing knowledge or past experiences did you use to help you to process this new experience? What resources did you use to help you begin to better understand this experience? How did this additional time, perspective, and knowledge alter your immediate impression of the experience?

3. Now, take your knowledge of this experience one step farther. How do you present your knowledge of this experience to an outside audience? This question does not necessarily ask you to recount how you speak to other people about the actual experience itself—although, you may feel that discussion of such an exchange or scenario is the most appropriate way to respond to this prompt—rather, it asks you to consider ways that you share your own learning through this experience with others. Have you become more knowledgeable about certain political issues, for example, and do you share this knowledge with other people? Did you learn something about yourself through this experience that impacts the way that you interact and/or share knowledge and information with others? Did this experience prompt you to do something new—change your major, travel, pursue new relationships, etc.—that you have shared with others? What has this experience prompted you to share with others and how do you go about doing so?

Media

1. With the exception of experiences we have had as individuals, events and information in general are often presented to us through secondary sources—radio programs, television news shows, print sources like newspapers or magazines, etc. These secondary sources rarely report this information in an “objective” way, which obviously influences the way we receive, process, and understand this information.

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Return to the events of 9/11, choose another event marked by violence, or return to your own experience if it was represented in the public forum. Find two public representations of this event and analyze these representations. How objective are these accounts? How does each source go beyond objective reporting? Often when we think about what constitutes an objective report of an event, we think of the statement, “Just the facts, please.” How do these reports go beyond just the facts, and in doing so, how do they influence the audience’s understanding of the experience?

2. The following prompt asks you to adjust your lens a bit. How does an image influence the way that we view violence? How does this visual representation prompt us to “look” and then to “see” a violent event like 9/11? Consider Scott McCloud’s analysis of comics. He writes in detail about how an artist thinks about various elements of this genre as he or she puts together a collection of visual and written text. He refers to various approaches to “sequence,” uses of “symbols,” elements like the “gutter” and “transitions” that impact pacing, the dimensions and shape of “panels,” and the relationship between images and written text in order to help us understand how a comic is constructed. The same close analysis of visual texts may be applied to photographs and other visual representations of events and experiences. Choose one of the following three images from 9/11/2001 and analyze the various elements of the photograph and how these elements work together to create a lens that influences your understanding of the moment.

New York City firefighter carries a fire hose as he works near the area known as Ground Zero after the collapse of the Twin Towers

September 11, 2001 in New York City.

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World Trade Center September 11, 2001

Smoke lingers in the air and debris litters the area after the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 in New York City

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3. In the first chapter of his text Ways of Seeing, John Berger writes, “The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe.” He goes on to explain, “We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.” Return to the image that you just selected and of which you engaged in a preliminary analysis. Reread your analysis and think about the influence of your own experiences and what you “know” and “believe” on your analysis. Where can you identify the mark of your own influence on your analysis of the image? How did your own knowledge and experience guide the analysis of the image? (You might consider moving beyond consideration of “what” you noticed during your analysis and think about “how” you conducted this analysis. What did you comment on first? What analytical path did you forge through this image as you were deconstructing it?)

Creative

1. Return to your personal account of an experience with or exposure to a violent event. For question #1 under “Personal” you were asked to free-write about this event in order to try to express the initial reaction you had to this moment. Now switch mediums. Represent your experience using visuals. Either draw your own representation of your experience or collect various images that you can use to create a collage that represents your experience. Write a brief explanation of why you chose these images to represent your experience. As viewers, what should we feel and/or understand when we look at these images?

2. With Art Spiegelman’s depiction of his experiences during 9/11/2001 in mind and Scott McCloud’s help understanding comics and how they are constructed, create your own comic representing the experience described above or another violent event with which you are familiar but perhaps not as closely associated. Your comic should combine visual and written text in some capacity, consist of at least three panels, and present a specific argument or perspective to your viewers. Keep in mind the elements discussed by Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics as you design your comic. And remember that this is not about being the perfect artist. Feel free to showcase your artistic talent, but also do not allow your view of your skills as an artist hold you back. This is not about being the most talented artist; rather, it is about combining visual and written text and your knowledge of a specific genre to help present an argument about violence.


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3. Now analyze the comic that you have created. Explain the choices that you made and the specific message that you hope to communicate. Exchange comics with another member of the class. Analyze the comic that you have received. What are your initial impressions? What elements do you notice? What can you infer as the message being presented through this comic? Debrief with your classmate and use these responses to help think about the clarity of your message and what sorts of revisions need to be made to your argument.

Formal

Power�and�Violence

Background: “The Problem of Comprehending Violence” asked you to grapple with one artist’s response to a personal encounter with a traumatic, violent event that impacted him as it impacted New York, the nation, and the world. For Art Spiegelman, the events of September 11, 2001 impacted his life in ways that extended far beyond that day and the immediate days that followed. As is evident in Plate 10 that you examined from Spiegelman’s text In the Shadow of No Towers, the artist grapples with issues from his past and present as he tries to sort out his immediate feelings and regain a perspective that will allow him to look towards the future without ignoring his own or his family’s past or present condition.

As is acknowledged in the introduction to “The Problem of Comprehending Violence,” “Part of the challenge of dealing with difficult material is to find a way to approach the subject matter and, when appropriate, to make that material accessible to a larger audience.” This is what Spiegelman has attempted to do in In the Shadow of No Towers as Aaron Rosen describes in his review “Shadow Boxing” published in the Jewish Quarterly (this review is mentioned in “The Problem of Comprehending Violence” and is available at: http://www.jewishquarterly.org/issuearchive/article2dab.html?articleid=110) This is a wonderful resource to read carefully as you consider how you will approach the formal writing assignment described below.

Assignment�Task: For this paper you will explore the subject of representing violence. What does it mean to “represent violence” to the author/artist, and/or audience? How is violence represented in various forms, by various authors/artists, and for various audiences? Why is it important to consider how violence is represented? How does the way that violence is represented within a certain context help us to better understand the role of violence within our society and/or world and how it is perceived, represented, and/or received by individuals?

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You may approach this subject from a number of different angles, but remember that the approach you choose must include an argument about the process of representing violence and refer to at least two outside resources that help you to support your argument about representing violence.

A news-reporting agency: Choose an article, photograph, or series of photographs from a newspaper, a TV station, an online reporting agency, or a combination of sources and present an argument about how violence is represented. Keep in mind that your objective is not to produce a “report” on the issue, but rather an argument about how the event, moment, etc. is represented through this medium. If you choose to compare resources, consider keeping your comparison to two resources and make sure that you compare representations of the same example of violence. Obviously when you are dealing with any sort of news reporting agency, you need to think about audience. For example, did Fox News report on 9/11 in the same way as The New York Times?

Literature: Choose a favorite piece of literature—a children’s book, a poem, a short story, a novel (graphic or traditional)—and present an argument about how violence is represented. Again, do not aim to produce a “book report” and/or summary of the literature; rather, generate an argument about how violence is represented. Again, you will need to think about the context for this literary example—when was it written, by whom, and for what sort of audience—as you develop your argument and determine why this representation of violence is significant.

Popular culture: Choose a favorite advertisement, video game, film, TV show, etc. and present an argument about how violence is represented. This may sound easy, but beware! You must choose an example that is manageable within the specified page limit. Remember that you will need to contextualize your subject for your readers and present a convincing argument. This may prove difficult to do if you select a topic that is particularly interesting and familiar to you but rather difficult to present to an audience. And, once again, the objective of this assignment is not to write a description of the subject and/or an essay about why you “really like” a certain film (for example); rather, you should construct an argument about how violence is represented in this source.

Personal: Create your own representation of violence. This might be a collage, comics, a short story, a poem, a collection of photos, drawings, paintings, etc. However, here is the catch. If you choose this creative option, in addition to your creative piece, you will need to write an argumentative essay about the process of representing violence as reflected in your creative piece.


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As emphasized with regard to all of these choices, you must present an argument about the process of representing violence as demonstrated through the resource that you select. This is a very difficult assignment because you will likely be inclined to choose a subject that is interesting to you. However, remember that you will be presenting an argument about the process of representing violence to an outside audience, so you will need to contextualize your subject and present a clear and well-supported argument about how violence is represented in the resource and why understanding how violence is represented is significant to comprehending how violence functions within our society, lives, and/or world.

Two outside resources are required for this paper. One resource may come from “The Problem of Comprehending Violence,” but the other needs to be the result of your own research on the subject. Make sure that you document your resources correctly both within the body of the paper and as part of your works cited page.

When working on your formal assignment, remember to:

� Choose your subject wisely. Select a subject that is interesting to you, but be aware that you will need to present an argument about this subject to an outside audience within the designated page requirements.

� Think carefully about argument. Remember what you have already learned about argument by reading this text and working through other problems and informal and formal writing assignments—all arguments include a “what” and a “why.” Your “what” will be the representation of violence, and your argument will explain how and why this representation helps readers to understand how violence is treated, viewed, received, acted upon, and/or represented within our society and/or the world. “Why” is this representation of violence (the “what”) important to your audience’s understanding of violence, and how it is received, perceived, and treated?

� Think carefully about the progression of your argument. What are your main points/claims? Remember, these main claims mark the major steps of your argument. How will you walk your reader through the major steps of your argument?

� Think carefully about your inclusion and treatment of evidence. What will you include as evidence—personal experience, direct quotations, images, summary, paraphrased material, etc.? Do not expect this evidence to “speak for itself ”; you must introduce, analyze, and explain it for your audience, and, of course, document it correctly!

� Save time to proofread!

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Part5Incorporating�Research

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14

Gauging Problem Complexity and Group Understanding

You are probably looking at this chapter sub-heading and thinking to yourself, “Again? Haven’t we covered this issue of gauging problem complexity and reaching a group understanding before beginning the problem solving process already?” And the answer to these questions is “yes.” We certainly have covered this issue during earlier discussions of problems, but this does not mean that the issue does not warrant additional reminders and further consideration. As you know from working in small groups this semester, whether or not your group is comprised of the same or different people for each problem or group project does not impact the need to revisit group principles and plan carefully regarding completion of each new problem or project. It is possible for group dynamics to change with each new task that is put before this collection of individuals. Since none of the problems are identical, each increases in complexity from the one that precedes it, and all group members have added to their foundation of knowledge through their work on problems and informal and formal writing tasks, the conditions surrounding the problem as well as the problem itself will need to be considered as a plan is generated by the group.

As you begin work on the fourth problem, think about the ways that this problem is more complex than the other problems that you have worked on so far in this course. Like you have done for the other problems, read through the problem first and think about not only “what” it is asking you to accomplish, but also “how” you are being urged to navigate your way through this problem, and “why” this navigation process. It is true that each group will determine its process for “solving” the problem, but the way that the problem is designed will require you to complete various tasks along the way. It is important that your group recognizes these various tasks and requirements before forging ahead with the problem-solving process.

Just as you have done previously, read through the new problem carefully before commencing group discussions.

� What readings are required for this problem?

� Have all group members completed the reading, or is there still work to be done in this area?


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� What about other materials like images, websites, or supplementary resources referred to in the problem?

� Have all of the group members at least looked over these materials?

� Which of these resources are going to require extra time and contemplation?

� Does the problem require additional research by group members? Does it ask you to conduct database research, explore certain resources, and/or collect your own data through interviews, surveys, etc.?

It is essential that you take a group inventory of the problem so that you know what has already been done by group members and what still needs to be done in order to move forward with the problem-solving process.

And do not forget about paying attention to the different individuals in your group. If the group configuration has changed, then you will need to remind yourselves of the various strategies presented in Part 2 of this text that introduce you to the problem-solving process and discuss the importance of taking the time necessary to get to know your various group members. Even after practicing group work over the duration of the course term, it is necessary to return to the basic principles when working with different individuals. The advantage of revisiting these principles at the end of the term is that all of your group members will have practice working in groups and an informed perspective regarding what is most successful when working in groups and what tends to present the biggest challenges. Remember to generate an action plan that will not only allow you to complete the problem-solving process in the time allotted, but also respect the knowledge, perspective, and voices of all of your group members.

Developing�a�Research�Plan

Locating ResourcesThe group and individual assignments in this text have required you to read various types of material and conduct your own research in order to locate primary and secondary documents to help you work through the various projects. For the most part, these searches have likely been fairly straightforward; basic searches through library databases and online searches have probably yielded the information that you have needed for these projects. The material in this section builds on the strategies that you have used so far and asks you to supplement the learning provided through your reading and review of resources included in the text. The formal, individual assignments require you to supplement your understanding of a topic through additional research, while the problem asks you to conduct some field research in the form of a public survey. Both will yield additional information to inform your main

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argument and supportive claims and provide evidence to be used throughout your problem write-up and informal and formal writing.

It is easy to assume that because it has worked so far in your academic career, you have the best strategy for locating relevant information for the various projects that require research. And perhaps this assumption is true. However, it is important for us all to think metacognitively about “how” we function and think as individuals (to think about how we think). Take group work, for example. As mentioned above, it is not enough to strategize about “what” you plan to do: “on day one we will complete ‘x,’ and on day two we will move on to ‘y,’ etc.”; rather, we need to think carefully about “how” we plan in a certain way, and “why” we do so. (This sounds very much like constructing a written argument, doesn’t it? If we just address the “what,” we are simply writing a report, oftentimes rehashing what has already been done. When we start to address the “how” and the “why,” we begin to move beyond reporting and into argumentation. We begin to anticipate the audience’s reaction and are prepared to address “why” our argument is important.) In order to answer the “why” effectively, we need to understand how we communicate as individuals and how this communication strategy changes when we enter various situations. And we need to ask the same questions of ourselves as researchers. Why do we rely on certain strategies for most research tasks, even if we know that the most familiar strategy does not necessarily make it the best strategy? A research process is just like a writing process: the researcher, just like the writer, needs to understand himself or herself as a researcher, which means understanding the task at hand, before commencing the task itself. Like all processes that lead to an end result, your research process needs to be revised and fine-tuned to be most effective.

Beginning the research process means locating a starting point. What is your main topic, and what more do you need to learn about this topic before you start generating sub-topics that will allow you to transform your topic into an argument? As you begin the research process with this main topic in mind, you will likely be directed to narrow your search from the beginning. Let’s say that you have been assigned a research project in your art history course and have been asked to explore the issue of “authenticity”: What does it mean for something to be considered “authentic”? What is an example of artwork or artifacts that contribute to the issue of authenticity, how will study of this example contribute to our understanding of ideologies of authenticity, and why is consideration of this example important? You probably will not have the answers to these questions until you engage in the research process and gain more understanding of your general topic.

A good way to begin to explore your topic, focus your topic, and begin to shape it towards an arguable thesis is through concept�mapping. The following flow chart provides you with a tool to help you get started with the research process.


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Courtesy of Courtney Bruch, Assistant Professor, Colorado State University-Pueblo Library, 2008.

Sub-Topic 1

Sub-Topic 2

Sub-Topic 3

Concept Mapping Towards a Tentative Focus

Diagrams

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Sub-Topic 1

Sub-Topic 2

Sub-Topic 3

Souvenirs

AuthenticityArt

Tourist Industry

Economics

MoneyClassPower

Effects of Power on Culture

TraditionArtifactsPreservation


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There is a place provided for your main topic. As you begin the research process, you probably already have questions that can be entered in the question boxes. You might have key words that you have extracted from the assignment task, and these key words and seeking answers to your questions will help you to determine if there our subtopics associated with your main topic that will help you to work towards adding more detail to the topic and ultimately refining it towards an argument.

Let’s return to our original focus for this discussion: ideologies of authenticity in relation to art. Perhaps you are interested in considering souvenirs as a starting point. You would write the word “souvenir” in the “Main Topic” box. You already have some key words to put in one of the “Key Words” boxes: “authenticity” and “art.” As you begin to think about refining your “Main Topic,” some subtopics might begin to emerge. If you are focusing on the issue of authenticity in relation to souvenirs, then the tourist industry as a force impacting art and perhaps altering a traditional definition of art might be your first “topic.” Researching this a bit more will likely cause you to begin to alter your main topic. If “souvenirs” is your Main Topic, the “tourist industry” your first sub-topic, and economics your second topic, then more key words may begin to be generated in another key word box. Key words such as “money,” “class,” “poverty,” and/or “survival” might be used to refine your original focus on “souvenirs.” As you begin to research a bit more, you might start to think more about “culture” and the impact of “power” on the shaping of culture and preservation of tradition as often represented through art. Perhaps the issue of the “effects of power on culture” becomes your third sub-topic and key words to help refine search strategies are “tradition,” “artifacts,” and “preservation.”

As is evident in the second diagram, this exercise in concept mapping has helped us to refine our original focus on “souvenirs.” New research questions that we might carry with us into a more advanced research process could include: “Are objects made by local craftsmen for sale to tourists considered to be authentic works of art?” or “How has economic pressure from dominant cultures impacted how art is produced by local craftsmen in traditional societies, and how has this production altered ideologies of authenticity connected with art?” We have moved from a focus on a research topic—“souvenirs”—to an argument about how the authenticity is impacted by economic pressures and dominant cultures and practices. Our next step will be to continue to research this refined question and better answer the “why” question of our argument: “Why is it important to consider this relationship? Why is the connection between power and art important for understanding the larger issue of authenticity?”

Once you refine your research question, you have already entered a more advanced stage of research. You have conducted preliminary research to help you narrow your focus, and you have reached the point where your research becomes very directed towards responding to your research question and contributing to the overall “why” or significance of your argument. Resources available for research will vary depending on the institution. Most colleges and universities will have some sort of library on-site, and depending on the size of the school and resources at hand, the available databases, catalog holdings, etc. will vary. And regardless

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of the size of the institution, most schools will have inter-library loan options available for students through which resources may be borrowed from other institutions. The first order of business, then, is for you to familiarize yourself with the resources available at your institution. In many cases, your instructor will plan some type of library or research session to help familiarize students with the available resources and recommended search strategies. However, it is up to you to seek out more assistance from the library staff and faculty if you have questions about research methods, library holdings, library policies, etc. Since research is part of most writing processes, it is important to build confidence and expertise in this area so that you can work towards the “ownership” of your process that is essential to a productive and authentic writing experience!

Know that library database subscriptions and catalog holdings vary depending upon the institution; hence, as you begin the advanced searching process, take time to familiarize yourself with the resources available. These resources may include but are not limited to the following: reference (e.g. Oxford Reference Online), magazines and journals (e.g. Academic Search Premier), news resources (e.g. LexisNexis), government information (e.g. Marcive), etc.

As you become more comfortable navigating your way through the various databases, you will be able to move into more advanced use of these resources. Take a look at the advanced database searching guide that begins with “Selecting Search Terms.”

Selecting Search TermsYOUR�ANSWER EXAMPLE

Topic�Statement: Topic�Statement:�The realm of art history is plagued by ideologies of authenticity when applied to artifacts produced in small traditional societies. For example, are objects made by local craftsmen for sale to tourists considered to be authentic works of art?

List�the�Words�and�Phrases�that�best�describe�your�topic.

List�the�Words�and�Phrases�that�best�describe�your�topic:art authenticity traditional societyartifacts artists tribesobjects tourists local craftsmen

art for touristsartifacts or objects in societiesartifact authenticity


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Limiting Searches in DatabasesYOUR�ANSWER EXAMPLE

Begin�searching�in�a�basic�database�such�as�Academic�Search�Premier.��List�some�useful�subject�terminology.�

Begin�searching�in�a�basic�database�such�as�Academic�Search�Premier.��List�some�useful�subject�terminology.�

ARTART & anthropologyINDIGENOUS peoplesPRIMITIVISM in artTOURISMMATERIAL culture

Write�down�the�dates�that�are�relevant�to�the�information�you�need.

Write�down�the�dates�that�are�relevant�to�the�information�you�need.

1) I need to see when people (European or American) started buying artifacts produced in small traditional societies

2) I then need to apply those dates to my searching

Write�down�the�types�of�sources�you�need�(scholarly�vs.�popular,�primary�vs.�secondary).��What�resources�(and�finding�tools)�would�contain�this�information?

Write�down�the�types�of�sources�you�need�(scholarly�vs.�popular,�primary�vs.�secondary)�What�resources�would�contain�this�information?

1) Since art historians (not the common public) are debating the issue I will need scholarly information.

2) Primary sources may be beneficial but are not required

3) Books (online catalog), Journal articles (Academic Search Premier and JSTOR)

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This guide is designed to help you plan your advanced search. Return to the concept map that we used to explore our initial topic and then narrow it towards more specific research questions. Write these in the first block of the right hand column after “Research Question(s).” Then, in the space following “List the Words and Phrases that best describe your focus” write the key words from your concept map. Since generating your concept map, refining your research questions, and exploring library databases and other resources, you may have added to or modified some of your original key words. Select the list that you think will be most helpful as you begin to respond to your research questions. Now begin researching the question through a basic database such as Academic Search Premier. As you begin to make some discoveries, list some useful terminology for the search process. Useful terminology usually yields productive database hits and also helps to narrow the search so that you locate the most useful resources. For example, if you use a basic database such as “Academic Search Premier” and enter “art” AND “anthropology” into the subject search, you will get more than 27,000 hits. Needless to say, this is a lot of resources to sort through, and if you attempt to do so, you will find quite a bit that is not very useful. Try narrowing your search by adding another key word. If you enter “art” AND “anthropology” AND “tourism” to your subject search, you will end up with about 2,000 hits. This is still too much information to sort through, but you have narrowed your search considerably.

As you continue to explore some of the research that you have discovered, think about ways to continue narrowing your search. For example, will historical dates help you to narrow your search? Do dates matter when you consider when tourism began impacting the production of art in a certain area? What is the area that you are considering? Are you looking at a specific culture or population of people? The more targeted you are in your search practices, the more focused the research hits. Of course, you need to gain knowledge and ideas through broad searches before you will be able to narrow you search.

Another way to narrow your search is to think about the types of resources you will need for this project. These types of resources (scholarly versus popular, primary versus secondary, etc.) might be determined by the assignment requirements, and/or they might be determined

What�was�your�most�successful�search�statement;�what�database?

What�was�your�most�successful�search�statement;�what�database?

Indigenous peoples (subject)AND art OR material culture (subject)AND tour*Narrowed to Academic journals; 1990-2007

Academic Search Premier



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by the research question. Be sure to pay attention to the assignment requirements; if your instructor wants a certain number of primary sources—sources that were produced at about the same time as the period, event, issue, etc. being studied, by individuals with direct knowledge of the subject of study—make sure that you are paying attention to dates and types of sources discovered throughout your research. Regarding secondary sources—sources that rely on primary information—dates may still be important. If you want more recent research, you will need to consider dates. You will also need to consider whether or not there are restrictions on the types of secondary sources required by the assignment. Does the assignment call for only academic resources? Are you permitted to consult popular resources? Are popular resources essential to your research topic? Make sure that you read and reread the assignment carefully so that you know what is expected in terms of research.

Finally, one thing that is easy to forget to do during the research process is to record your most effective research strategies. The final prompt—“What was your most successful search statement; what database?”—is designed to help you keep a record of what worked most effectively during the research process. It is often easy to focus on the completion of a project and forget about the next project or future revisions on your current project. Remember, a paper or project or process is never done, it is just due! Think about how champion athletes or concert musicians or well-known artists would perform, sound, or produce if they did not take note of their successes and/or challenges? Every process needs to be assessed, and with every process, and every learning experience, you will gain additional knowledge and experience that will help you to refine your process.

Understanding Reputation and Considering ReliabilityWith the amount of information available to researchers today, it is often difficult to determine which sources are reputable and reliable. This becomes especially difficult when using electronic, especially web resources. Which resources can you trust as a researcher to provide you with accurate information from a reliable source? Just like with all research processes, you need to be a careful, critical, and informed researcher as you begin to evaluate resources for writing projects that you author or co-author.

Understanding the basics of web research is an important starting point. People’s knowledge of the Internet varies widely depending on exposure to and practice using technology. Some of this information will be very basic for many of you, and for others, it will be new. This is one of those many areas that benefits from group discussion. It is a complex and constantly shifting area, so while the following will provide some basic information, it is likely that further discussion among your peers and with your instructor will yield some important information.

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Evaluate Your SourcesWhat research question are you trying to answer?

Title or URL evaluating:

Domain(if�applicable)

1) What is the domain? 1)_______________________

Author/Source�of�

Information

2) Who is the author or source of information?

3) What are his/her credentials (educational background/expertise)?

4) Is the source of information clearly visible?

5) Does the author appear to be working for a reputable organization?

2)________________________

3)________________________

4)________________________

5)________________________

Up-to-date

6) When was the information produced, created or updated?

7) Do you need time-sensitive information?

6)________________________

7)________________________

Accuracy

8) Does the site include a list of sources that verify its accuracy?

9) If not, can you further research the information it provides; where?

8)________________________

9)________________________

Content�&�Purpose

10) Who is the intended audience of the work?

11) What is the purpose of the work (to persuade, explain or negate)? Look for a hidden agenda.

10)_______________________

11)_______________________

Context�for�Your�Research

12) Is the information comprehensive or will you need to find more information?

13) How will this supplement your research?

12)_______________________

13)_______________________



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These questions are designed to help you evaluate web resources that you might be interested in using as research for your paper or project. As with any resource, and especially with electronic resources, it is important to evaluate your resource before using information to inform your research question or support your argument in written form. The questions begin with a familiar question meant to keep you focused on the task at hand: “What research question are you trying to answer?” You might get tired of reading some version of this question, but it is crucial to stay on track and focused throughout the research process. Exploration is important to the research process, but in order to pace yourself and make sure that you meet your deadline, it is important to know when to stop exploring and to focus your efforts on your research question.

The next question asks you to identify the title or URL (Uniform Resource Locator) that you are evaluating. An example of a URL is http://www.colostate-pueblo/edu/About/MissionStatement.htm and the domain name is www.colostate-pueblo.edu. An important element of this domain name is the .edu web address. An .edu web address denotes educational affiliation. An .org web address signifies a non-profit organization, while .gov denotes a government affiliation, and .net identifies connections with technology. A .com website use to signify a connection with a commercial business, but this is no longer a sure sign of such affiliation. There are several other types of web addresses, and they vary based on country of origin. More web addresses are beginning to appear, as technology is a flexible and ever-changing area, so it is important to think about what “type” of web address you are looking at when conducting research to support your argument.

The areas following the “domain” category are all designed to help you evaluate the web resource. Working through these categories and responding to questions #2 through #13 on the “Evaluate Your Sources” form will help you to ensure that the resource that you are using is both reputable and reliable. Understanding the “Author/Source of Information” will provide you with information regarding the author and his/her background and credentials. It will also allow you to examine the source of the information and consider any potential influences on this source. Questions that ask you to consider whether or not the material is “Up-to-date” ask you to consider when the information was published, and if you are dealing with “time-sensitive” information—information that needs to be recent or from a specific period of time—these questions help you to ensure that the information is accurate and appropriate to your needs. Questions #8 and #9 help you to determine accuracy, and questions #10 and #11 help you to identify the intended audience and the overall purpose of the resource. Finally, questions #12 and #13 prompt you to determine whether or not you have conducted enough research, and if not, how you plan to supplement your research. Working through this list of questions will help ensure that your research is reliable and you have enough to support your overall argument.

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Incorporating Outside Material into the Problem-Solving ProcessAll of the problems in this text ask you to negotiate among various sources as you navigate your way through the problem-solving process. Some problems entail more formal “outside research” than others, and all of the problems require you to collect and synthesize information. Careful review of the problem before you initiate the problem-solving process as a group will help you determine what you need in order to respond to the problem. As a group, you may decide that the first steps will be to divide the research responsibilities among group members. This strategy might allow you to cover more ground as a group and determine where gaps in information exist that need to be filled. Or, you might decide that you want to collect as much information as possible on all areas requiring additional research, that each group member will collect information on all elements of the problem calling for outside information, and that you will pool your resources and then choose the strongest pieces of evidence to support your overall argument. Whichever strategy you decide to use, you need to think about your objectives for doing so. Choosing a strategy should be a group effort based on the expertise, needs, and desire of the group.

As has been discussed throughout this text, “more” is not always “better” when it comes to problem write-ups. In other words, including a lot of mediocre or eclectic evidence to support an argument or major claim is not always as convincing as selecting your strongest pieces of evidence and using them strategically throughout your problem write-up or paper to support your overall argument. Critical reading of evidence and walking audience members through your own critical reading process and interpretation of evidence is essential for making evidence convincing in a paper. It is not enough to just include evidence or a lot of it; choosing wisely and spending time with the evidence in order to show your readers how important it is to the argument is more often than not the most convincing strategy. And what do you do with the “leftover” evidence? Some writers “save” it for other projects. Creative writers will often tell stories of what they do with their idea scraps—they might have a jar where they literally cut out extraneous material from their writing and store it for another project. If they are stuck, they might simply pull an idea out of their jar and start writing. This is not just a productive strategy for creative writers. Scraps of evidence, pulled from a jar or a computer file, may lead you towards an interesting paper topic in the future and/or provide the type of evidence you need to support a new argument. No research is wasted research; a good and thorough researcher always discovers something productive about him/herself as a scholar, the topic, and/or the research process by engaging in the act of researching itself.

Documentation The importance of careful and consistent documentation was discussed earlier in this text. These chapters emphasize the importance of staying organized throughout the research process, which is essential to all types of research and especially the projects that ask you to negotiate among various materials and research strategies. Keeping careful records and being


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Example�#1

Many children are being thrown into testing at younger and younger ages. The term used to describe this trend “according to a teacher-educator in Ohio is ‘front-loading children’ a usage that appears to have originated in the world of capital investment” (qtd. in Kozol 115). This type of word choice turns schools into more of a business and not a place where children go to receive an education.

� When you look at this section of a group project that uses Jonathan Kozol’s research as evidence, what does it communicate to you? Is the evidence incorporated well into the students’ own prose? Does the evidence make sense? Do the student-authors attempt to interpret the evidence for their readers?

� Is Jonathan Kozol’s work reliable? How do you know this?

� An educator is quoted in Kozol’s piece as is indicated by the parenthetical citation that reads “qtd. in Kozol” (quoted in Kozol). Is this quote within a quote convincing to you as a reader?

Evidence Examples

able to locate how, where, and from what or whom you collected data is crucial to ensuring accurate research. Establishing a careful record-keeping process will make it easier to track resources, document resources, and double-check material. Practice using the documentation strategy preferred by your instructor and become comfortable with this and the many guides designed to help you understand the different strategies. Recognize that different disciplines often require different documentation strategies and that details matter when it comes to this process. Documentation strategies make the most sense when you understand what they are designed to do. Not only do parenthetical citations and a works cited page provide your reader with a map through your research and resources to use in order to both verify your sources and supplement their own research, they tell the story of your research process and provide valuable insight into the evidence used in your paper. Remember, just like you will verify the reliability of your resources, your readers will very likely do the same when they read your group and individual projects. Making sure that your documented evidence tells the story of careful research and informed choices with regard to support of your argument is essential to a ensuring a strong argument.

The following presents two examples of how some Colorado State University-Pueblo students have used evidence in their group projects and what their use of evidence reveals about their research. Questions follow each example in order to help you think about how effectively evidence has been used.

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Example�#2

Another point brought about by Kozol is the rigorous testing that the children must go through. In some areas the students are prepared for the test from “8:40 to 11:00, and from 1:45-3:00” (113). Also, the last four weeks before the test the students are forced to come in on their Saturday off and learn for three more hours.

� Almost all of the same questions that are posed above in conjunction with example #1 apply here as well: How is the evidence used? Is the student-authors’ use of evidence convincing? Have they used the most effective example? Is Kozol a reliable resource?

Documentation tells a much more in-depth story about the research process and argument design than you might think. A simple parenthetical citation that acknowledges the source of your direct quotation, summarized material, or paraphrased material reveals much about your research process and the reliability and strength of your argument. Research carefully and use research wisely in your group and individual papers. The voices at work within your paper can function to both strengthen and weaken your argument. Practicing responsible research and documentation strategies will not only make you a better researcher, but it will also make you a better reader of others’ research!


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Problem #4The Problem of Corporatization

Image�1:��McDonald’s Happy Meal

Image�2:��Home Sweet Home

Image�3: McMansion

Image�4: McDonald’s Characters

ReadingsGeorge Ritzer, McDonaldization: The Reader. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press,

2006. Pages: 4-24.

Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation. New York: Perennial, 2002. Pages: 49-57.

Image�5: McDonald’s Mesquite 920 W Mesquite Boulevard (USA)

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Image�7:��McDonalds Times Square

The Problem

What does “Just Lovin’ It” really mean? What does “Supersize Me” imply? Are these just advertising gimmicks to make the consumer hit the drive-thru window or buy more food than he or she really needs, or does the regularity with which consumers are bombarded with these slogans and urged to satisfy that “Big Mac Attack” start to influence behavior with regard to various sectors of American culture?

George Ritzer, author of “An Introduction to McDonaldization,” and Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, both believe that the powerful advertising and business practices of corporations like McDonalds have influenced consumers’ general practices and decisions beyond food. Ritzer argues that McDonalds has become a global icon and via the efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control through nonhuman technology upon which the corporation relies and functions influences consumers’ preferences, expectations, and decisions regarding many facets of life. Schlosser focuses on the advertising tactics of corporations like McDonalds and Coca-Cola and how these companies start influencing consumers’ practices at a very early age.

This problem will ask you to use your own experiences as consumers, analytical skills for reading images and text, and research experience to examine Ritzer’s concept of McDonaldization, explore its validity, and construct an argument that applies it to a sector of American culture. Your job will not be to simply agree or disagree with Ritzer, but rather to construct an original argument about American culture and to present your argument in a convincing way to a larger audience of consumers.

Part I: Branding1. Examine the first sequence of images (images #1 through #3). As individuals, make

a list of words that come to mind when you look at each image. These words can

Image�6: McDonald’s New York 34Th Street in Herald Square Macy’s (USA)


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describe characteristics, ideas, feelings, reactions, etc. The idea is to generate a list of single words or short phrases that represent your immediate response to the image. Do not analyze the image, but rather react to it and record your response in list form. Just like when you draft a paper, this is a brainstorming exercise designed to capture your immediate response to something. Create a list for each of the three images in the first sequence and then share your responses as a group. Then repeat the same process for the second sequence of images (images #4 through #7).

1a. After sharing your responses to both sequences of images, as a group discuss the similarities between the two sequences. Why are these sequences juxtaposed with one another? What do the two sequences have to do with one another? What do these sequences represent about American culture? As a group, compose an argumentative claim that makes a statement about American culture by drawing upon similarities between these sequences of images.

Part II: Gaining Context and Terminology 2. Read the selections from Ritzer’s McDonaldization: The Reader and Schlosser’s Fast

Food Nation. As a group, respond to the following questions in an effort to deconstruct the texts and provide a more definite context for your analysis of the two image sequences presented in Part I:

Ritzer: McDonaldization

i. Summarize Ritzer’s main argument in your own words.

ii. Identify three passages from Ritzer’s essay that helped you to understand his argument. Cite each passage, provide a brief summary of the passage, explain why you included the passage, and identify key words in the passage.

Schlosser: Fast Food Nation

iii. In your own words, summarize the main argument that Schlosser presents in these two sections from his book and the chapter “Your Trusted Friends.”

iv. Identify two passages from Schlosser’s work that helped you to understand his argument. Cite each passage, provide a brief summary of the passage, explain why you included the passage, and identify key words in the passage.

2e. Return to your responses to 2.ii and 2.iv and compile a list of key words important for understanding the similar arguments that Ritzer and Schlosser present.

2f. Now return to your response to 1a. Rewrite your argumentative claim about the two sequences using your list of terminology gleaned from Ritzer’s and Schlosser’s work.

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After rewriting your claim, reflect on the influence of McDonaldization on American consumerism as reflected in the housing market. Do you think that applying McDonaldization to your analysis of these images and what they represent about American culture yields a productive argument? Why or why not?

Part III: Adding Voices and Perspectives3. By now, your group has discussed the concept of McDonaldization; you have gained

an understanding of this concept, applied it to one small sector of American culture, and have initiated a conversation regarding its helpfulness as an analytical tool. Now it’s time to gain more insight into how others view this concept. Part IV of this problem will ask you to use the data that you collect in this section to help present an argument regarding McDonaldization and a selected sector of American culture (e.g. food, clothing, education, religion, travel, etc.). As a group, design a survey that solicits feedback on the concept of McDonaldization and asks individuals to reflect on the application of this concept to a specific sector of American culture. Your survey should include the following:

i. Between eight and ten questions

Hint: You need to include enough questions to solicit helpful feedback from your interview subjects, but you do not want to create a survey that is so long that it becomes overly time-consuming and burdensome for your group members and those responding to the survey. Adjust your question count accordingly if you include multi-part questions.

ii. An image sequence (use the examples provided in Part I for guidance) designed to ask participants to reflect on the connection between McDonaldization and a specific sector of American society.

Hint: While the image selection and sequence design for this section of the survey are up to you, use the two sequences presented in Part I for guidance. As you know from working through this problem, the sequences are designed for viewers to make connections; the sequences are constructed in such a way that prompts viewers to think about how McDonalds’ iconography reflects characteristics that may be connected with other sectors of American culture. How can you inspire viewers to make similar connections?

iii. Specific terminology from Ritzer’s and Schlosser’s work

Hint: Refer to the list of key words that you compiled for 2e. Think about how to integrate some of this terminology into your questions. You may


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want to construct a question that asks people to reflect on a term without providing them with a formal definition: “Define McDonaldization.” Or you may want to provide them with other hints like, “In his book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser quotes a memo from Ray Bergold, a top marketing director for McDonalds, who wrote, ‘The challenge of the campaign…is to make customers believe that McDonald’s is their ‘Trusted Friend’ “(50). Do you recognize this as part of McDonalds ad campaign—do you feel like McDonalds is your ‘trusted friend’? Why or why not?” This could be followed with a question that asks respondents to reflect on the concept of McDonaldization in light of this advertising tactic.

Remember that your survey should emphasize the connection between the concept of McDonaldization and a specific sector of American culture. All of your questions should be designed to solicit adequate feedback regarding this connection. Again, some of your questions might be geared towards soliciting more general feedback about the concept of McDonaldization itself, but this tactic should be used as a way to help respondents make connections between this concept and a specific sector of American society.

At least fifteen people should respond to your survey. As with the survey questions where careful thinking matters during the design process, the selection of your survey respondents should be made with care as well. Your audience matters in terms of the type of feedback that you will receive. What characteristics are you seeking in a respondent pool? What sort of audience demographics are important to consider in terms of the type of feedback you would like to receive and use to construct your argument?

3a. Organize, analyze, and summarize your data. After collecting the surveys, transcribe the data if necessary (an electronic survey will not require transcription). Next, develop an organizational strategy for the data. Think about identifying major themes for each question and organizing your data in terms of the themes. As you start to analyze the data, consider patterns in responses (for example, how many people noted the same characteristics when identifying connections between the two image sequences) and relevant demographics. Finally, summarize your data.

Part IV: Cultural Application and Analysis4. For this part of the problem, you will present an argument about McDonaldization

and your selected sector of American culture to a wider audience. Rather than simply developing an argument based on your survey and own knowledge of this concept gained through your reading of Ritzer and Schlosser, conduct a bit more outside

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research. Locate, read, and analyze three reputable sources that will help you to develop an argument based on your research topic. Construct an annotated bibliography that provides the source data presented in the documentation style selected by your instructor, a summary of each resource, and a brief explanation of why this information is relevant to your argument.

4a. Choose a genre and present an argument regarding the connection between McDonaldization and your selected sector of society. Use your research and survey data to help you to both generate your overall thesis and provide evidence for development and support. You may choose any genre you would like to present your argument; however, keep in mind that specific genres allow authors to emphasize and accomplish different things through their writing and to appeal to certain audiences. Form is just as important as content when presenting an argument. Hence, think about your research and data, carefully construct your argument, choose your genre, and then use this selected literary form and your material to support your argument. Be creative, take pride in your hard work researching your topic and surveying individuals, and present your argument in a convincing way.


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chapter


155

15


This term, through your work on problems and both informal and formal writing, you have come to understand the importance of understanding an assignment before committing to your approach to the assignment. You now know how your thinking on an issue can change with additional reading, research, and conversations with peers, instructors, tutors, and other potential audience members. You have practiced collaboration, close reading, discussion, and critical thinking, and you have learned how these practices deepen our knowledge and better equip us to engage in and take full advantage of a reading, thinking, and writing process.

The fourth formal writing assignment is challenging in that it combines much of what you have worked on throughout the term. It asks you to take a position on the power of corporate influence by selecting a topic, using both Schlosser’s and Ritzer’s methods of analysis to deconstruct this source of influence, researching your topic, and incorporating evidence from your research into your project. Furthermore, you have the option to use a visual as a piece of your evidence and/or the main focus of your argument, which means that you will need to consider the tools for visual analysis discussed in this text and use appropriate terminology when you are discussing the image and its significant elements.

This final assignment reflects the culmination of your learning in this course, a course that has combined various types of learning experiences from individual work to informal writing to group work to small and large group discussions. As discussed in early chapters, this hybrid course has appealed to different student interests and their diverse methods of learning. The success of the learning experience has depended upon a collaborative learning environment and students, like you, who are open to listening to and learning from the knowledge and expertise that your instructor and peers bring to the classroom community. As you know, learning, like writing, is a process. This text presents an argument about the power of learning as a process, so this final assignment represents the culmination of your learning in this course. Take advantage of the opportunity to really showcase what you have learned. Budget the time necessary to think about the project, conduct helpful research,


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collect viable evidence for your argument, consult with potential audience members, solicit peer and instructor feedback, and revise, revise, revise!

Understanding Your Approach: Reading and Resources

By now, you recognize the importance of reading thoroughly and selecting supporting resources with care. Exploring readings first through problems and/or informal writing provides the perfect opportunity for reading closely and critically. Activities that allow you to try out ideas on paper and/or discuss them with friends provide practice. Furthermore, the need to return to the reading in order to clarify your thinking through rereading, discussion, and additional research when necessary is necessitated by the problems themselves; it is simply impossible to be successful on the problems as a whole if you and your group members do not study the readings in a recursive way that mimics and contributes to a recursive writing process and select deliberately and conscientiously the resources to inform your thinking and support your claims.

Indeed, all of us know how easy it is to become frustrated with readings and locating appropriate resources. Any reading, assigned or not, has the potential to produce this frustration. Perhaps it involves a topic that is simply uninteresting to you. Maybe unfamiliarity with the topic creates confusion. It is possible that the reading is simply poorly written. Or, maybe the challenging topic is not presented in a clear way for the reader. A research process can be just as frustrating. Recall the times when you have attempted to research an idea or issue and you kept encountering dead end after dead end. Or, perhaps you have a topic that has led you to amass too much information and made it difficult to narrow your topic. Yet, even when we are faced with these frustrations, we often need to find a way to persevere; we are not always able to put the reading down and find a selection that is more appealing. When these frustrations arise, it is important to consider the study skills that you have already learned; think about the assistance that is available to you in the form of instructors, peers, and friends; and consider what you can take away from this learning experience even if it has not been your most enjoyable one.

All learning experiences deepen your knowledge, add to your experience, refine your expertise, and ultimately help you to be more patient and productive thinkers and scholars. It is also possible for you to find some sort of connection with each and every learning experience that you encounter. Hopefully the breadth and diversity of learning opportunities in this text have provided you with a lot of engaging, exciting, and meaningful learning opportunities. It is certain that every user of this text will leave the reading and learning experience with a more in-depth understanding of collaboration, close reading, their writing process, spoken and written communication, research, and critical thinking. This knowledge is essential to your understanding of each learning opportunity in this course and in all of your learning opportunities to follow in your educational and professional career.

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Understanding Your Approach: Research and Documentation

As discussed in the preceding chapter, it is important to strategize with respect to research. Just like reading and writing, research is a complex and often individualized process. The complexity is due, in part, to the fact that technology has made resources more readily available to the general public. People have more to choose from, and this makes finding the sources you are looking for more exciting and also more complex. Just as you need to strategize with respect to how you budget your time in order to complete all of your responsibilities on schedule, or how you define your writing process based on your successes and challenges as a writer, or how you communicate within a collaborative setting, or how you negotiate among critical thinking, reading, and writing with regard to your general learning practices, you need to strategize regarding how you will find resources to help inform the various stages of your work on a specific project.

Using the recommendations featured in the preceding chapter will help you to manage your research process. Recall that just as you refine your argument over time as you gather information, deepen your knowledge, and sharpen your focus, you refine your search process. During the brainstorming process your search will be wider as you gather information and become more knowledgeable about your subject. As you become more knowledgeable and deepen your understanding of the issue, you will form an opinion that will require more focused research to help solidify your argument. Then research becomes even more focused as you think about what you need in order to support your entire argument and the various claims that it includes. The collection, organizing, and refining process works just like a funnel: the large opening allows you to collect the information that you need (and don’t need), and as you learn more about your topic and approach to it, your searching strategies become more sophisticated and focused, and your research becomes more strategic as your project takes shape and your output of information narrower and easier to direct.

As already discussed, keep track of your search process. Create an ongoing “works consulted” page that helps you to see the progress you have made and also ensures that you have a clear record of resources that have informed your thinking. Some of these may not make it on to your works cited page or bibliography, but they still might be helpful for finding additional resources and/or for use on a different project. At the very least, you are creating a map of your research process and making it unlikely that you will forget to properly acknowledge and document one of your resources.

Remember that your parenthetical citations and formal works cited page or bibliography are essential for your readers’ understanding of the argument. Indeed, you must document ideas and language that are not your own, but this formal documentation also allows your readers to better comprehend your research process, follow the course of your argument, understand the context informing your argument, and seek out additional information about


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the topic. This is why there are such specific requirements regarding formal documentation procedures. Each parenthetical citation used according to a specific documentation method (MLA, APA, etc.) communicates precise information to the reader—author, resource, page number—and this information serves as a code for understanding the entries on the works cited page or bibliography, which then directs the reader to the actual resources. Indeed, trying to remember all of the formatting details can become tedious, and this is why there are so many resources available to help you to document correctly. A handbook might be a required resource for the course, you might be directed to a specific online resource, or you might be asked to find your own documentation resources. There is no shortage of resources to help you with this aspect of your writing, so do not use this as an excuse to ignore this essential part of any writing process. The final presentation of your document to your audience is as important as any other stage of your writing process. As with all parts of your project, budget enough time to read through your document carefully and/or ask someone else to read through your document in order to proofread, make final edits, and ensure that you present a polished project for public viewing.


Informal

Personal

1. Think back to one of the earliest moments when you can recall being influenced by corporate culture. Describe the experience in as much detail as possible: What was the moment like? What are some words, actions, details, etc. that you can still associate with the moment? Reflect on how this moment made you feel: Powerful? Powerless? Vulnerable? Finally, evaluate the moment: Was it a positive or negative experience? Would you choose words other than positive or negative to describe this experience? Why or why not?

2. Now contemplate how your relationship with corporate culture has changed over time. Using the experience described above as your starting point, identify two more key moments in your development as a consumer. Based on these three moments, describe your “consumer lifeline.” To what degree has corporate culture influenced your life? In what ways have you responded to this influence?

3. Considering the brief history that you have described, how would you speak to a new consumer about the influence of corporate culture? What sort of appeal would you use to present your argument, and what would be your

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main points (try to produce at least three)? You may be as creative as you would like with your response; if you want to compose a dialogue, write a story, produce a series of comic strips, go for it! Choose the genre that works best for you and your position on the issue.

Media

1. For at least five minutes, brainstorm a list of slogans that you can recall promoting some element of corporate culture. Problem #4 highlights one such slogan; “I’m lovin’ it” from McDonalds has become familiar throughout the United States and around the world. These slogans do not need to be associated with a specific sector of corporate culture; the point of this exercise is simply to get as many down on paper within a five-minute timeframe without consulting outside resources.

2. After completing your brainstorming activity, analyze the list in front of you. What do you notice about these slogans? What is familiar? What is appealing and/or “contagious” about these slogans? Why do you think you remember them? What makes this type of information “stick” in your brain more often than some of the information that you would like to remain embedded in your consciousness for immediate and/or long-term recall (names, dates, addresses, etc.)? Ritzer’s discussion of efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control might prove helpful for this analytical exercise.

3. What connections can you make between Barry Lopez’s discussion of power and representation and Schlosser’s and Ritzer’s discussion of the power of corporate influence? How is our way of viewing, our perspective, shaped by external forces? And how is this relationship between power and perspective relevant to the title of Lopez’s chapter, “Learning to See”?

Creative

1. “The Problem of Perception,” “The Problem of Comprehending Violence,” and “The Problem of Corportization” have all asked you to examine visual images and consider ways that power both influences and is represented by these images. Instead of analyzing another visual image, create one of your own that reflects on the relationship among power, representation, and perspective with respect to a specific issue, person, event, etc. Design the image to show how certain uses of power impact the way that an issue, person, event, etc. is represented and how this representation is designed to influence the way that viewers perceive it.


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2. Pair up with one of your classmates and exchange images. Analyze your partner’s image and explain how you view power as influencing representation and consequently perspective in this image. Refer to at least three elements—color, text, alignment, etc.—in your response and comment regarding how they are used in the image to influence representation and perspective.

3. Now, return to your own image. Read your partner’s analysis of the image and respond to this analysis in terms of your plan and vision when constructing the image and what you have learned through your partner’s reading of it. Where are there intersections between your partner’s interpretation of the image and your intent when designing it? How do your two interpretations diverge? What have you learned through this exchange of ideas, and how would you use the insight gained through this collaboration to inform your revision of the project?

Formal

Corporate�Power�and�Influence

Background:��“The Problem of Coporatization” asked you to think about George Ritzer’s and Eric Schlosser’s belief that the powerful advertising and business practices of corporations like McDonalds have influenced consumers’ general practices and decisions beyond food. Schlosser focuses closely on advertising tactics and George Ritzer analyzes corporate practices and influence using the elements of efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control.

As part of a group, you have already familiarized yourself with Schlosser’s and Ritzer’s arguments and used their methods to analyze another sector of society where corporate influence and power are evident. Your work on this paper will require you to continue this type of analysis as you propose an argument about the effects of corporate influence on consumers’ thinking, actions, and choices.

Assignment� Task: Using either or both Schlosser’s and/or Ritzer’s methods of analysis, propose an argument about the negative and/or positive effects of corporate influence on consumers’ thinking, actions, and choices.

There are many possibilities for this paper. You could focus on an advertising campaign, a major corporation, a cultural practice, a favorite pastime, etc. Think about how people and systems in power influence our way of thinking about politics, consumerism, individuality, identity, and value. Think about how power used by these people in charge and/or systems impacts our ability to think

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critically and make choices. Remember, this assignment does not ask you to create a report on a campaign, corporation, cultural practice, etc.; instead, generate an original argument about how corporate power influences consumers’ thinking, actions, and choices.

If you use visuals as part of this assignment, make sure that you refer to available handbooks and/or online citation guides that will direct you in how to cite these resources carefully in your paper using the documentation style preferred by your instructor. Also, apply your close reading skills to these visuals. As you know, visuals are a form of evidence and they will not “speak for themselves.” Visual texts require the same level of analytical engagement as written texts; they need to be deconstructed according to their many elements and their relevance to your argument explained. Ritzer also provides some helpful elements for analyzing corporate influence. Consider using his elements of efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control to help construct and support your argument about corporate power and influence.

Requirements:

Your paper should include evidence of your understanding and use of either or both Schlosser and/or Ritzer. This means that material from either or both of these authors’ work should appear in your paper. This also means that you are using Schlosser and/or Ritzer as research for your paper; hence, their work should be cited correctly within the body of your paper and on your works cited page.

In addition to Schlosser and/or Ritzer, you should include material from two other resources, and your choices should demonstrate your knowledge of the difference between reliable and unreliable sources as discussed in Chapter 14 of this text.

Unless specified otherwise by your instructor, you may not select the same focus explored by your group for “The Problem of Corporatization.” You may use research conducted for this problem, but you need to select a new focus for your paper and present an original argument.

As you work on the formal assignment, recall the following:

� Choose your subject wisely. Select a subject that is interesting to you, but be aware that you will need to present an argument about this subject to an outside audience within the specified page limit.


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� Think carefully about argument. Remember the discussions about argument throughout this text—all arguments include a “what” and a “why.” Your “what” will be the source of power and influence, and your argument will explain how and why this source impacts consumers.

� Think carefully about the progression of your argument. What are your main points/claims? Remember, these main claims mark the major steps of your argument. How will you walk your reader through the major steps of your argument?

� Think carefully about your inclusion and treatment of evidence. Don’t expect evidence to “speak for itself ”; you must introduce, analyze, and explain it for your audience and, of course, document it correctly! Remember, this careful analysis is required of all texts—visual and written.

� Save time to proofread!

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Part6Reflecting�on�Your�Learning�Process

chapter

your development as a learner

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16

Making�Learning�Meaningful

Learning is a process. While parts of this process may be directed by another person—teacher, supervisor, colleague, friend, etc..—the overall process itself is your own. Your process may change according to the requirements of certain projects, but you need to take “ownership” of it. Learning should be an authentic and meaningful experience for you; you should feel comfortable with the process, define learning for yourself, understand how you learn, recognize your strengths and areas for improvement as a learner, and identify how and why life-long learning is relevant for you. As you know, the learning process involves much more than what happens within the walls of a classroom, and the learning that is initiated within any classroom should extend well beyond the duration of a specific course. The writing course that you have just completed has equipped you well for various learning experiences to follow throughout your academic, professional, and personal life. Careful reading, critical thinking, audience awareness, and overall strong communication skills will serve you well in almost all learning situations.

Critical Reading, Thinking, and Writing

Strong communication depends on an ongoing relationship among critical reading, thinking, and writing. It might not seem that all three of these activities are involved in each and every communicative act, but in most cases, they are. Consider just some of the many possibilities: producing a business plans, lesson planning, completing your taxes, writing a grocery list, using a social networking site, designing a webpage, personalizing a recipe, party planning, and the list goes on. While reading, thinking, and writing may be defined differently within various circumstances, if you think of all three activities contributing to communication, then you begin to recognize how these three activities constantly intersect and how it becomes increasingly more difficult, depending on the complexity of the task at hand, to disentangle them. Recognizing, understanding, and leveraging this three-way relationship will make you a stronger communicator.


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Where Did You Begin?

Let’s face it; not all students look forward to taking a writing course when they begin their post-secondary career. However, every student can take something away from the learning experience. Think back to the beginning of the quarter or semester when you began this course.

� How did you define a writing course then, and how do you define it now?

� How did you anticipate the course contributing to your learning and preparing you for the academic, professional, and personal challenges to follow, and what will you take away from the course?

� Where were you as a learner when you began this course? Were you confident as a communicator? If so, why? What made you confident? At what point were you most successful? If you were less confident in your communication skills, why did you lack confidence? What made you apprehensive about this activity?

Looking back across several months of learning will help you to determine what you are taking away from this learning experience and perhaps even more importantly, how you can help others to strengthen their communication skills. Think about how audience awareness pertains to your interaction with people in general. When you consider your audience—the readers to whom you would like to appeal, their potential likes and dislikes, their degree of exposure to the issue at hand, etc.—you are analyzing (“reading” and thinking critically) about people. Doing so allows you to consider word choice, tone, and the negotiation between claims and evidence in your argument. These same skills can be applied to everyday interactions with people. You will be better able to understand their strengths and weaknesses as communicators, and like through your problem-solving work in this class, learn from what they know and are good at doing, and better address their reservations or areas of need regarding communication.

In a way, this cycle of looking back in order to help others to proceed forward and strengthen their communication skills enacts the recursive process that is so important to overall learning. As you have learned in this course, neither writing nor learning occurs across a linear trajectory; instead, you learn by revisiting content, thinking, and writing and deepening your knowledge, challenging your ideas, expanding your practices, and sharpening your skills. Helping others to become stronger communicators will help you to sharpen your own skills through this recursive learning process.

Where Are You Now?

It is often a rewarding process to look back across a learning experience and consider where you were as a learner at the start of that process and your progress by the conclusion of the

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Your Development as a Learner

experience. Just like with any written project (remember, a paper is never done, it is only due!), a learning process never ends, but it does progress, become more complex, and intersect with other facets of your daily life. Hence, without a doubt, you are in a very different point in your development as a learner than you were at the start. So, with this in mind, where are you now? How have you honed your strengths and developed areas of need?

At the beginning of this text, you were asked to both describe yourself as a writer and your philosophy of learning. Your experience in this course has revealed to you how writing and learning are most certainly intertwined and how, in some way, writing of various types (including your own) contributes to your learning process. With this in mind, revisit one of the first writings you produced in this course in response to the question:

� What is your learning philosophy?

Revise your learning philosophy based on your experience in this course, and, if relevant, throughout the learning experiences you have had in your academic, professional, and personal life this term:

� What are the intersections among these different areas of your life? How do your various experiences inform your overall learning?

Applying Your Learning Process to the Academic, Professional, and Personal World

This course has emphasized authentic, real-world learning and the importance of recognizing learning opportunities, taking advantage of these learning opportunities, thinking across disciplines and various facets of your life when you consider your learning philosophy, and taking ownership of your learning. As you have discovered, a composition course is not simply about writing; rather, it is about communication of all different types and the essential three-way connection among critical reading, thinking, and writing. Communication and these critical practices are essential to just about everything we do on a daily basis and necessary for effective problem solving, planning, and basic tasks.

The Academic WorldThink specifically, for a moment, about all of the intersections between your learning in this course and your work for other courses this term. Even if you are in a major that you anticipate will not involve much formal writing, which skills and strategies introduced and practiced throughout this course have you used in other courses? Here is a partial list of skills and strategies covered in this course that are transferable across disciplines. Consider this list, and then take a few minutes to brainstorm and expand the list based on your own experience applying skills and strategies across disciples this term:


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� Critical thinking, reading, and writing

� Problem-solving

� Collaboration

� Organization

� Development

� Audience awareness

� Clarity

� Voice

� Presentation

Strong communication skills matter to every academic discipline that you will encounter throughout your academic career. It does not matter if you intend to become a writer, engineer, lawyer, doctor, nurse, teacher, small business owner, manager, etc.—every temporary job that you take on or long-term career that you foster over the years will require you to communicate indirectly or directly with other people and correspond formally and informally through writing. Your training for these positions begins in your academic discipline, and part of your training involves your composition course(s).

Remember that strong communication skills take practice. You have experienced an entire quarter or semester of practice, and you might have another quarter or semester ahead of you. However, practice should not stop at the doorway of the composition classroom. You should be practicing your communication skills across the disciplines, and if you are not provided with focused and regular opportunities for practice, then you need to seek these out on your own. You have a strong foundation from which to continue to hone your skills, and part of being a strong communicator and skilled critical thinker is learning to recognize the many opportunities for practice.

The Professional WorldIn a report issued by The National Commission on Writing, Writing: A Ticket to Work…Or a Ticket Out,” business leaders expressed the importance of strong communication skills for securing, maintaining, and advancing in various careers. A survey was conducted of 120 American corporations, and the findings included the following:

� Writing is a ‘threshold skill’ for both employment and promotion, particularly for salaried employees. Half the responding companies report that they take writing into consideration when hiring professional employees…

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Your Development as a Learner

� People who cannot write and communicate clearly will not be hired and are unlikely to last long enough to be considered for promotion…

� Two-thirds of salaried employees in large American companies have some writing responsibility…

� Half of all companies take writing into account when making promotion decisions. One succinct comment: ‘You can’t move up without writing skills.’ (A: 3)

If you have any lingering doubts about the importance of strong communication skills to help you secure and advance in a career, a quick perusal of this report will eliminate them. Just stop and think about how every aspect of a job search involves strong communication skills. As a job seeker, you must research job availability. You need to search for jobs in such a way as to amass many possibilities and then be able to narrow your search in order to apply for the most appropriate and potentially awarding positions for which you are most qualified. When you have compiled your list of possibilities, then you need to construct an argument for why you are the best candidate. A resume, job letter, and perhaps application will present your argument to your very focused audience. In order to present this argument in a convincing way, you need to learn as much about your audience as possible. This means researching the company, its history, the position, etc. Once you have as complete an understanding of the position as possible, construct your argument. Look at your resume first, and certainly do not assume that the same resume will appeal to all employers; just like with any argument, you will need to adjust it in order to fine-tune your appeal to various audiences. This document, along with an application if a potential employer requires it, will present much of the evidence for your argument. Your cover letter, on the other hand, will present most of your supportive claims, which will help to contextualize the evidence and direct your audience members to essential areas on your resume and job application. More often than not, next steps involving an interview will depend upon the clarity, completeness, and how convincing your argument is for its intended audience.

It is amazing, really, when you stop to think about it, how much of your professional future depends on your ability to construct sound arguments and communicate effectively. This confirms the importance of composition courses for both academic and professional success, and it signifies the relevance of these courses for all college students regardless of perceived personal strengths and weaknesses when it comes to communication. Regardless of your writing level, every student-writer needs the opportunity to practice. Viewing communication as a recursive process allows you to improve simultaneously each writing piece and your overall communication skills.


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The Personal WorldThe importance of clear communication does not just apply to the classroom or the professional world; it is hugely important to your daily interaction with the individuals who are part of your personal world. Consider all of the resources that deal with managing personal relationships and the problems that can lead to breakdowns in communication such as:

� Tone

� Assumptions

� Perspective

� Lack of Clarity

� Vagueness

� Incompleteness

This partial list begins to reveal intersections with the discussion of communication that is developed throughout this text. Just like with any audience, clear and careful communication is critical to progress. Of course all of us learn from our mistakes. We learn how to appeal to particular audience members, we learn what buttons not to push, we learn how to make certain people laugh, how to make them cry, how to create a joyous experience through communication, and how to communicate effectively during difficult moments. The context may have changed from the academic setting, but whether it is the classroom, the boardroom, or the family room, communication drives the experience.

Claiming the Power to Communicate

Much of content in this text has focused on how power influences representation, presentation, and communication. From education to monumental historical events to photography to advertising and corporate culture, power influences the way that we all perceive, analyze, and communicate about the various facets of our world. These representations that we receive are influential, meaningful, and at times troubling. Understanding how power is used to communicate a message to potential audience members is essential so that we can respond to these messages in informed and equally powerful ways. As has been the pattern throughout this text, we return to the importance of critical reading, thinking, and writing and the recursiveness of communication. It is our job as both consumers and producers of knowledge to consider everything we see with an informed and critical eye. It is our job to think, analyze, and respond with care. It is our job to add to the larger dialogue that informs our world about all aspects of life, to engage in civic discourse, to create change, and to live a responsible life. It is our job to recognize, claim, practice, and model powerful communication.

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Readings

the road to romeby Jonathan Kozol

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If the education of some children, but not others, is to be regarded henceforth as primarily a matter of commercial training or industrial production and the products of this process are the children with the value that is added to them by the skills that they acquire every year in public school, then product-testing of these juvenile commodities appears to have a simple and unquestioned logic of its own. The specifications for the products are already posted there above their heads on classroom walls, in corridors, on classroom doors. It remains to measure the results.

The debates about standardized examinations have been raging in this nation now for several years. A number of respected educators who have made compelling arguments against the nature of these tests, as well as the effect that they have had on teaching practices, are cited in this chapter and at greater length in the end-pages of this work; their arguments apply to public schools in general, both privileged and poor. But inner-city children are the subject of this book; and my concern is with the special consequences high-stakes testing and the uses that are made of it have had on children whom I actually know. As damaging as the obsessive emphasis on testing often proves to be for kids in general, I believe that the effects are still more harmful in those schools in which the resources available to help the children learn the skills that will be measured by these tests are fewest, the scores they get are predictably the lowest, and the strategies resorted to by principals in order to escape the odium attaching to a disappointing set of numbers tend to be the most severe.

Even in good suburban schools where scores are generally high, I don’t know many principals and teachers who believe that the repeated measuring of children’s skills by standardized exams has had a positive effect upon the processes of education; I know many more who feel it has the opposite result. But, in the districts in which students as a matter of routine do relatively well, the tests do not entirely suffocate instruction or distort the temperaments and personalities of the instructors. Teachers in the elementary grades within these districts generally feel they can allow themselves the luxury of letting youngsters wander off from time to time into a subject that holds interest for them but has no direct, or even indirect, connection with the competencies to be measured by the state. It is a different story in too many inner-city schools where deviations from a charted road set off alarm bells for the


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supervisory officials and where teachers who are not eternally “on task”—one of a number of such stolidly directive terms imported from the world of industry—are made to understand that they will bear the burden of responsibility if the percentile gains demanded, for example, by one of those school improvement plans are not attained within the time prescribed.

“If the road does not lead to Rome,” said a woman who was called the “manager” of language arts for the Chicago public schools, “we don’t want it followed.” Rome, she said, was the examination children would be given at the end of a specific sequence of instruction.

In a summer session for students who had failed a previous exam, little was “left to chance,” noted a journalist from Education Week. Teachers were “given binders spelling out precisely what they should be doing every day…” To guarantee that they complied, “three dozen monitors” dropped in on classes periodically.

The purpose of these practices, according to the system’s CEO (“superintendent” is no longer used to speak of the administrator in this system), was to guarantee that on a given day everyone is at the same place in the sequence. The Chicago CEO, when asked how he had been attracted to the uniformity of this approach, said that he first struck on the idea while scrutinizing training manuals for the National Guard.

Most teachers I know, who tend to look upon the education of young children through a somewhat softer lens than that of military training, are unsettled by such references to military “manuals” and to military metaphors in general; but if we truly want to know the way to get to Rome as rapidly as possible, the forced march of a group of children, like a line of soldiers under strong command, may seem to be a logical approach. So long as knowledge is considered something like a dot upon a map and learning is considered an assault upon that knowledge (invasion of the subject matter, followed by its capture), then it’s hard to quarrel with the model that the CEO had used.

Teaching materials used in many urban districts do resemble “manuals” in the sense that they are not real texts but workbooks narrowly conceived to prime the children for the taking of specific tests. The workbook used by children in Chicago’s summer session was, indeed, called Test Best, with no pretense that it served a function other than the one its title indicated. Similarly, in New York City, when Pineapple was in third grade, she had a mathematics workbook with a title that referred explicitly to getting ready for her high-stakes tests. (Bridging the Test Gap, it was called, a pretty awful and demoralizing title, I thought, for a book we hand to children!) The reason I remember this is that she brought it to me once during the afterschool at St. Ann’s Church and asked if I would help her with her homework. When she handed it to me, I asked her, “Where is your real math book?” “This is it!” she answered with her usual ebullience, and she opened the test-preparation booklet to the lesson she had been assigned. It may be there were real math books in her classroom that the students weren’t permitted to take home; but the homework she and her classmates had been asked to do that week and in the weeks to come was limited to what was in this manual.

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The Road to Rome

Most Americans whose children aren’t in public school have little sense of the inordinate authority that now is granted to these standardized exams and, especially within the inner-city schools, the time the tests subtract from actual instruction. In Peoria, Illinois, a couple years ago, I was visiting an elementary school in which black and Hispanic children made up 90 percent of the enrollment. “Success For All Who Walk Through These Doors,” a sign proclaimed to visitors, but there was little education taking place in many of the classes at the time I visited because these were “testing weeks” in which a series of examinations had to be administered.

“Our entire 90-minute literacy block was knocked out all last week in second, third, and fourth grades,” said the principal, in order to administer a nationally standardized exam of basic skills. The subsequent week, when I was there, students in the first three grades were taking another set of tests in order to assess what are referred to as “phonemic” recognitions. Then, later in the year, another lengthy period of class instruction would be sacrificed to giving children in the third and fourth grades yet another test (“approximately a week of testing,” I was told), this one mandated by the state of Illinois. On top of all of this, a teacher said, students also took a test once every eight weeks that was part of the assessment process for the literacy program.

In some schools, the principals and teachers tell me that the tests themselves and preparation for the tests control more than a quarter of the year. At P.S. 65, during the three months prior to the all-important state exam, fifth grade teachers had to set aside all other lessons from 8:40 to 11:00 and from 1:45 to 3:00, to drill the children for their tests. In addition to this, two afternoons a week, children in the fourth and fifth grades had to stay from 3:00 to 5:00 for yet another session of test preparation. “So, on Wednesdays and Thursdays,” said one of the teachers, “students have five hours of test preparation” and “they also have to come to school on Saturdays to get three hours more of this during the last four weeks before exams.”

The children were told, she said, that “it’s not just ‘important’ that they pass,” but that “passing this—the test—is actually the only thing that is important.” One of her students “was throwing up and crying, so she couldn’t take her test, because she was afraid she’d never be allowed to leave the school because she’d never pass the state exam.”

In some cities, these examinations start as early as in kindergarten or first grade. Four years ago in Santa Paula, California, for example, kindergarten children were required to take standardized exams beginning in the last week of September. Two weeks, in all, were taken up by these exams, which school officials said they had to give to qualify for extra funding from the federal government.

The tests were written by the company that also writes the Stanford 9, a standardized exam for older children that was used by many districts at the time. “Our philosophy,” said the principal of one school in the district where the bubble-tests were used, is that “the sooner we start giving these students tests like the Stanford 9, the sooner they’ll get used to it.


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A Los Angeles Times reporter described a four-year-old who “tapped his head with his pencil” and “stared blankly at the test booklet before him,” because he did not yet know how to read. “The boy looked desperately to his teacher…,” who, however, could not give him help. “Keep going,” the teacher told him. “The whole page. All by yourself.” Some of the children didn’t know “how to hold a pencil… Many didn’t know the basics of test-taking, such as moving from one page of questions to the next.” Other children in the district, said The Times, cried and wet their pants out of frustration.

“They were clueless,” said a first-year teacher at another Santa Paula school. “It’s not fair.” A kindergarten teacher said she thought her job was to make children love to come to school. “This test does not do that,” she observed.

Santa Paula’s public schools are populated mostly by Hispanics; only about 15 percent of children in the system are Caucasian. In the two schools that The Time’s reporter had observed, Hispanic children made up 95 percent or more of the enrollment. As in other instances where standardized examinations are administered to children in their first few years of school, the burden falls most heavily on children who have had no preschool education. The theft of time this represents—two weeks of testing in the first two months these kids have ever spent in school—is simply one more injury they undergo.

There is a new pedagogic term for introducing children to these testing practices beginning at a very early age. The term, according to a teacher-educator in Ohio, is “front-loading children,” a usage that appears to have originated in the world of capital investment. (“Short-term pain for long-term gain,” this educator said, is how the term has been explained to her.) No matter how offensive this may be to teachers, school officials often feel they have no choice but to apply these practices during the first two years of school, a tendency that has been forcefully encouraged by directives coming from the Bush administration. In Alabama, for example, in which kindergarten children are required to take standardized exams three times in the academic year, officials in one district did away with “nap time” so that teachers would have extra time to get the students ready for their tests. “If the state is holding us accountable, this is the way we have to do it,” said the director of elementary education in the district. “Kindergarten is not like it used to be.”

The usual administrative rationale for giving tests like these to children in their elementary years is that the test results will help to show their teachers where the children’s weaknesses may lie, so that they can redirect the focus of their work in order to address these weaknesses. In practice, however, this is not the way things generally work, because of the long lapse in time between the taking of these tests and the receipt of scores.

Principals and teachers in some schools have told me that the scores on standardized exams, which are administered most frequently between late winter and the early spring, are not received until the final weeks of June and, in some cases, not until the summer. “I get no help

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from this at all,” a teacher in one Massachusetts district told me. “By the time the scores come back, they’re not my students anymore, unless they fail—and then maybe I’ll see them in my class again the next September.” In some states, test results are given to the teachers far more quickly, and in a number of districts, including New York City, “interim assessments” have been introduced so that teachers can derive some benefit from these exams close to the time at which the children take them; but this is not the pattern in most sections of the nation.

There is an entirely different kind of early testing in which the results are instantly available to teachers because they administer and grade the tests themselves and because the tests, which are not bubble-tests, are given individually to children, so that teachers can observe the difficulties that they face and can assess their strengths and weaknesses during the administration of the test itself. I recently watched a teacher giving one such diagnostic test, known as the “ECLAS,” to a student in her second grade. This was not a high-stress situation. The student was relaxed and seemed to like the private time and personal attention that the teacher gave him. Although the teacher had to draw upon her ingenuity to keep the rest of the children occupied with independent work while she was doing this, she did not view it as time stolen from instruction because she considered it a valuable portion of instruction.

There is no “test prep” for these kinds of genuine assessments. Teachers would have no reason to drill children in advance because the purpose of these tests is not to judge the child or the teacher but to gather information that is helpful to them both. A teacher, moreover, does not have to wait to be informed by a test-scoring company how well or poorly individual children, or the class in its entirety, are doing. The teacher’s observations of her students and the running record that she keeps as they progress through the assessment are what matter, and the information that she gains does not need to be evaluated by a stranger in a distant city working for a testing corporation before it can be considered “accurate” or “useful.”

This is not the case with high-stakes standardized examinations, the results of which supplant and overrule the judgments of a teacher. “What worries me most,” writes Deborah Meier, “is that in the name of objectivity and science,” the heavy reliance upon high-stakes testing has led teachers “to distrust their ability to see and observe” the children they are teaching and derive conclusions based upon their observation. “For a teacher who sees a kid day in and day out to admit that she won’t know how well he reads” until the day the test scores are delivered by an outside agency “is not good news,” she says.

“We cannot trust such tests,” she writes, “to determine an individual’s competence or the success of any particular school, school district, or state,” or to determine the worth of any school reform or set of school reforms. “We can win occasional short-term public relations victories . . . by improving testable skills, but in the end such victories will be at the price of good education. Scores will rise and fall as superintendents come and go; that’s the way the game works. And meanwhile we distort the education that we offer as we try to beat the game.”


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One of the distorting consequences that is taking an especially high toll on children of minorities, she notes, is the increasing practice of compelling children to repeat a grade or several grades over the course of years solely on the basis of their test results and, in some districts, almost wholly independent of the judgments of their principals and teachers. “Test-mandated holdover policies have . . . chilling effects,” she says. “Every time we hold a child over, we are substantially reducing the odds of that child graduating anytime in the future”—and when a child is held back twice, the likelihood that he or she will never graduate increases by 90 percent. Even before the standards movement started to impose these non-promotion practices, writes Mrs. Meier, “half the young black men in America were at least one year over-age when they reached eighth grade.” Now, with non-promotion rules mandated by a number of our states and cities, many experts are convinced that the non-graduation rates among black and Hispanic students will increase, and some believe this escalation may already be observed.

There is another way in which the students in increasing numbers of our low-performing urban schools are being penalized by the insistent pressure to deliver higher scores on standardized exams. In many of these schools, traditional subjects such as history, geography, and science are no longer taught because they are not tested by high-stakes examinations and cannot contribute to the scores by which a school’s performance will be praised or faulted. Anyone who talks informally with children in some of these elementary schools is likely to discover quickly the effects that this has had in limiting their capability for ordinary cultural discernments.

Once, during a conversation with a group of fifth and sixth grade students who had gone to P.S. 65 or were still enrolled there, I was surprised when I was asked if “Massachusetts,” which the children knew is where I live, was “in New York.” When I said, “No, it’s a different state,” they seemed confused. I tried to do a little lesson with them about cities, states, and countries, but I recognized that these distinctions were not clear to them at all. (Two of the children told me that the country that we live in is “the Bronx.” Two others said it was “New York.” One of the children, when I handed her a dollar bill and asked her to study it awhile, finally ventured that it might be “the United States” but voiced this with a question mark, as if she was not convinced enough to state it as a fact.)

Most of these children, two of them already 12 years old, also found it very hard to make even quite general distinctions about periods of time: “last year,” “maybe ten years ago,” “a hundred years ago,” or “centuries ago.” Whether the life of Martin Luther King came after, or before, the War Between the States or the War of Independence or, for that matter, the year when they were born was all a hopeless blur. Leaving these kids so utterly adrift in time and place seemed like an act of state-determined cognitive decapitation.

In some of the same schools, art and music are excluded from the organized curriculum, not solely because of budget cutbacks that have decimated art and music programs, as

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we’ve noted in New York, but also, again, because these subjects are not tested by the state examination and, for this reason, are regarded as distractions from the subject areas that will be tested. A principal’s ability to claim that children in her school are learning to play violins or to read music, or performing in a dance ensemble or a choral group, or participating in a beautiful theatrical production, will not protect the school from sanctions or humiliation if its scores in math or reading do not satisfy the stipulations of the state. Some principals in urban schools do what they can to introduce or to preserve arts programs by securing private grants and by insisting that some portion of the school day be protected from the states empirical demands; but these are largely marginal activities and nothing like the programs of rich cultural exposure that are prized and celebrated in the schools that serve the children of the privileged.

The virtual exclusion of aesthetics from the daily lives of children in these schools is seldom mentioned when officials boast that they have pumped the scores on standardized exams by three or four percentage points by drilling children for as many as five hours in a day. The scores go up, the scores go down, as new officials and new methods come and go, as Mrs. Meier notes; but the stripping away of cultural integrity and texture from the intellectual experience of children, denial of delight in what is beautiful and stimulating for its own sake and not for its acquisitional equivalents, is a perennial calamity.

The banishment of recess from the normal school day is perhaps the ultimate penurious denial. In Atlanta, recess has been systematically abandoned to secure more time for test-related programs since the last years of the 1990s, according to the education writer Susan Ohanian, who has documented practices like these in many districts. “We are intent on improving academic performance,” said the superintendent of Atlanta’s schools in 1998. “You don’t do that,” he said, if kids are “hanging on the monkey bars.” In 80 percent of the Chicago schools, recess has been abolished also. In Chicago, as in other cities, elementary schools that have no recess are most likely to be those that serve minority communities.

What kind of childhood, it may be asked, are we designing for these children, who already have so little opportunity to play in safety in their neighborhoods, who often live in cramped apartments that have neither porches nor backyards, whose only place to play is frequently the stairwell or the hallways of their building? I can attest to this from years of climbing up the often bullet-pocked and urine-smelling stairways of the buildings in which many of Pineapple’s neighbors live and finding children running up and down, and back and forth, to play the little games that they make up with one another in between the landings. Pediatricians and psychiatrists may be disturbed to hear of schools where recess is truncated or abolished in the desperation to carve out a bit more time for drilling children for exams; but from the point of view of business-like efficiency—“time management” and “maximizing productivity”—it may seem to make no sense to squander time on something that has no apparent benefit beyond the fact that it may be enjoyable and healthy.


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Some of the districts that deny their children recess also deny the students they call “Level Ones” or “Level Twos” a good part of their summer holidays. Summer ceases to be a time for play and relaxation or for stimulating education of a different kind from that which is provided in the normal months of school and, instead, becomes a time when children who have not done well on standardized exams are dragged back into classrooms where they’re given still more drilling in anticipation of a “retest” in September. These are not sophisticated and exciting summer schools of cultural and intellectual advancement such as those that children of the affluent are likely to enjoy, often in vernal settings in which arts and music, camping and athletics, are included. There is nothing “vernal” or sophisticated in these summer sessions for the children of the poor. These are summer institutes of sweat and drill and tension and anxiety, sited in the same unpleasant buildings where the children spent the other ten months of the year, which would not be needed for most of these children if their schools were not so flagrantly deficient in the first place.

Other districts go still further and distort the timing of the summer break for their entire student population in an effort to accommodate school calendars to testing schedules. In these districts, school begins in late July or early to mid-August, not for any reason of historical tradition (as has sometimes been the case in certain sections of the rural South) but because it gives the district one more month to get the children ready for the state exams that they will take in the late winter. This does not mean children are provided with more education, as some might at first assume. The school year in such districts typically ends as much as four weeks earlier than in the schools on normal calendars; so what is gained in August is subtracted in the spring. The only reason for this seasonal manipulation is to make it possible to skew the test results by giving schools more time upfront to prep their students prior to the day they take exams.

The tests, however, like it or not, are hanging there like sharpened swords above the heads of principals and teachers, and since the scores, when they are finally released, are widely publicized in press accounts and on TV (the lowest-scoring schools are often named in horror stories in the tabloid papers—“Halls of Shame . . . the worst of the worst . . . the dirty dozen,” for example, says The New York Post above a story on twelve of the city’s lowest-scoring schools), educators live in terror of the day the scores come out.

These tensions are increased still more in districts where the top officials are provided cash rewards if they can improve “performance” as it’s measured by the test scores in the schools they supervise. Principals too, in many districts, can receive a bonus—up to $15,000 yearly in the New York City schools—if their students’ scores improve at certain stipulated rates. Teachers also are awarded bonus pay in many districts if their students make impressive gains, a policy that has its parallel in sales incentives in the business world and has been in place at various times in recent years in parts of Texas, North Carolina, Colorado, California, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio, Florida, and elsewhere.

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What does it do to those who enter a profession, as the best of educators do, out of enlightened and unselfish inclinations that are not at all unlike the call to ministry or service that brings others into occupations that are altruistic at their core, then find their frame of reference is distorted by a rivalry for extra money at the cost of fellow educators at another school nearby who are often doing every bit as good a job as they but happen to have a group of kids this year with far more complicated problems than their own or who perhaps have had a string of substitute teachers the preceding years? Teachers in these instances are penalized collectively for long-existing problems over which they did not have control; and, while the cash rewards, in principle, are correlated with the progress children make in any given year, there is often little measurable progress made at first after students in a school have been subjected to long periods in which there was no continuity in their instruction.

Then, too, there is the common situation of a school that has been failing for a long time and is finally shut down—which, in itself, if all the other elements within this scheme were rational and fair, may sometimes be a very good idea. The children no longer have a school; so they’re dispersed to other schools nearby. One or another of these schools may have much better scores. Suddenly now, with several hundred new arrivals who have failed their tests for several years, the average scores at the receiving schools, of course, go down. So now, illogically enough, their faculties and principals come under scrutiny as well.

This happened a few years ago at one of the better elementary schools in the South Bronx. Five months after the school had taken in 250 children from two nearby schools that had been closed, the fourth grade teachers gave their kids their all-important state exams. The average math and reading scores declined substantially. This was not the fault of teachers or the principal; they had had these new arrivals scarcely more than half the academic year. But I walked into the office of the school one day in mid-July and found the principal in tears. There were her test scores in The New York Daily News!

The name of this school is P.S. 30. Its principal, Aida Rosa, recently recalled that moment poignantly. “The reason I was crying,” she explained, “was that those kids that I received were close to zero in their scores when they were sent to me. Then I also took in kids from other failing schools because their parents came to me and asked if I would take them in. They’d cry! So I’d admit them. All these kids were very low achievers, but I could not say no to their mothers. . . .”

In a fair-minded system she would have been honored for the faith that parents placed in her and for the qualities of character that made it hard for her to turn them down; but in the new world order of incentives and humiliations, qualities like these earn no rewards. Numbers become everything. Live by rubrics, die by an accidental dip in yearly scores. And to the winners go the extra $15,000.

In one of our conversations, Mr. Endicott described the system of belief demanded of the teachers by the method of test-driven teaching at his school as “a doxology.” The heart of


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the doxology is the unquestioned faith that there is one straight road, and one road only, to be taken and that every stage along the road must be annunciated—stated on the walls, reiterated by the teacher—in advance. In itself, the naming of an “outcome” or “objective” for each lesson by a classroom teacher, as we’ve noted earlier, is a familiar practice in most schools. It’s hard, indeed, to think of any public schools, even in historically progressive districts, where administrators don’t believe that certain outcomes should be stated clearly, that they ought to have some rational connection to the tests their students have to take, and that these goals should be pursued with continuity and firmness by their teachers. In most schools, however, there has also been a compensating recognition that at least some episodes of less manipulated learning, and an atmosphere in which the unanticipated question or the unpredicted answer will at all times be respected and can even be enjoyed and welcomed, are essential parts of healthy education too.

Teachers in these schools are able to leave time for children to reveal themselves in the discursive ways that children do as they meander from the question that a teacher may have asked into an answer that appears at first to be irrelevant and which, as younger children’s answers often do, seems to forget where it began. In schools I have been visiting in good suburban districts, where there are typically no more than 18 children in a class, teachers do not need to cut a child off abruptly in these situations but can listen patiently enough to find what often is a bit of hidden treasure at the end of one of these long sentences. Sometimes it’s that unexpected revelation that unlocks a secret place of motivation that the teacher otherwise might never see. In overcrowded urban schools where it is common to find 28 to 30 children in a class, teachers do not often feel they can afford—or are specifically advised that they cannot afford—the luxury of listening to answers which, for lack of obvious, immediate, and literal responsiveness, do not advance the necessary forward march to those objectives that are posted on the wall.

There are teachers everywhere who won’t accommodate themselves to these demands; but in too many instances the road that leads to the Iowa Test of Basic Skills or to whatever other state-determined metric may be used allows no detours for the interesting little storyteller who is piling on the “ands” and “buts” to tell us something which, to him at least, is of the greatest possible importance.

Some children I have known rebel against these testing protocols and the severe intentionality of teaching methods by which they have been accompanied; and even while they give their teachers what the teachers’ script demands, and pick up on official words they’re supposed to use, and patiently comply with the test-preparation sessions and the rest, they find their quiet ways to say, “I do not like what you are doing to me now”—or, as educator Herbert Kohl has summarized this message, “I won’t learn from you.” Many children never let these passages of inner insurrection be observed, except perhaps by growing sullen or withdrawn—or, as in Pineapple’s case some years ago, by saving up her anger for a long time and then joining other students in the instigation of a palace revolution that impelled the rattled teacher to give up

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her script and curse them out and shout them down and, in that sorry instance, flee the class, and flee the school. Other children do not wait so long to show their discontent and they confide it sometimes to their grown-up friends outside of school.

One of the children who has talked with me most openly about the testing tribulations and related miseries that he has undergone was twelve years old when he and I first met in the South Bronx. His name is Anthony. When he introduced himself to me at St. Ann’s Church in 1993, he told me he wrote poetry—and, he added, was “also working on a novel”—and shortly after that he handed me what he announced was his “first novel” (22 pages, it was a good story).

He read very widely for a child of that age. He first had been attracted to the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, in part because he knew the poet had once lived in the South Bronx. By the age of thirteen, he had discovered Mark Twain on his own. A year later, he was starting to become entangled in what he would later call “my battle with Charles Dickens.” He tended to overreach his reading skills at times; he’d plunge into almost anything that captured his attention, then confess to me he had decided “not to finish it for now” because it proved to be too hard.

Still, his comprehension of the books he finished, and even of the ones he read only in part, was usually pretty good and he would often startle Reverend Overall and me by the incisive, sometimes even supercilious comments he would make about a book he thought that he would like but which then “disappointed” him, a word he liked to use, I think, because it seemed to indicate this was the writer’s fault and not a matter of his own distraction or impatience. His scores on standardized exams, however, were about as bad as they could be. By the judgment of the many adults who would come with me to visit at the church and whom he’d often instantly appropriate for long digressive conversations, which they obviously enjoyed, he was a precocious boy with an endearing eccentricity; but in the number ratings of the New York City public schools, Anthony would probably have been decreed to be a “Level Two: in language arts and a “Level One” in math.

“Whenever I went into those bubble-tests,” he told me recently, “I knew that I was done for! I’d suddenly become ‘clamped-up.’ I’d feel, ‘I have to get out of this room.’ I’d think, ‘I hate to do this test, so I’m not going to be able to do well on it. . . .’ Number two pencils! The points would always break. The truth is I just hated all of it. I felt beaten down by so much else that went on in the South Bronx at that time”—those were the years when HIV infection decimated families in the neighborhood, and Anthony’s uncle died of AIDS a few months after we had met—“the test was one more beating.”

The middle school that he attended was a violent, impersonal, unhappy institution where the principal was so caught up in his attempts to reestablish order that he scarcely seemed to have the time to get to know his pupils. When I stopped by one day to ask him a few questions


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about Anthony, he could not find his records and at first could not remember who he was. After shuffling some papers for a time, he said, “Is he the one with pimples?”

After three years at the school, he went to a newly founded high school in the Bronx that had been praised in press accounts when it had opened and where academic levels were reported to be higher than in other high schools in the area; but his intellectual originality and curiosity and the very traits, indeed, of earnest independence that had led him into writing poetry and lengthy narratives at such an early age created problems for him at the school. He would daydream often, and write poetry or stories in his notebook, while sitting through a course that he found boring. As a result, he frequently was taken out of class and put into a program of detention he described as “isolation.” A few of the teachers seemed to like him and tried to speak up for him; but it was clear that the administration of the school thought little of his gifts. The principal told the pastor of St. Ann’s, when she went up to question her, that on the basis of his test scores it did not seem likely he would ever go to college.

Now and then, a child like Anthony attracts the interest of a sensitive person from outside the neighborhood who is prepared, and has the means, to help him to escape from what appears to be a dead-end situation. A generous man whom Reverend Overall and I had come to know decided to give Anthony this opportunity. A few months after he had sat in what he called “the isolation chamber” at his school in the South Bronx, Anthony was being interviewed by the headmaster of a good New England boarding school. What didn’t come across in scores on standardized exams did come across, it seems, during that interview. He was accepted with the understanding that he must repeat one grade, which he agreed to, willingly.

He never did give up his independent spirit or his sometimes maddening irreverence for a literary work or school assignment that displeased him for some reason; but he worked hard, and teachers in his classes, which were half the size of classes he’d been used to up to then, were able to give him extra help during a class, and after class, as well as in the evenings. It was a great struggle for him at the start, not only academically; but he made friends, looked for support to faculty advisers and the ever-vigilant headmaster, and he kept on writing poetry.

Two years later, when he was in the eleventh grade, Anthony called me late one night in great excitement to report that Dr. Robert Coles—“the writer,” he explained in case I did not know—had visited the school to give a lecture and that he had had a chance to question him. I will not attempt to summarize the long narration Anthony provided, which had many complicated twists and turns, as does most of his written work as well. The question he had asked had been about a book that Dr. Coles had written which described a child he had known during the early days of civil rights who had to face tremendous challenges and had to learn to rise above the prejudice and opposition she encountered in her efforts to obtain an education at an integrated public school. In his question, Anthony had drawn upon a poem he loved by Edgar Allan Poe and asked the doctor if he thought this child finally found what

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she was searching for in life, which Anthony referred to as “her El Dorado.” According to Anthony, Coles replied that he had never thought of El Dorado as “a place but as a path,” as Anthony reported this, and that “she found ‘the way’ “and, as he put it, “found it on her own, because she followed her own heart, as you might say, and so she found her El Dorado.”

I cannot easily describe the satisfaction that I heard within his voice when he reported this to me. He seemed to take the deepest pleasure in that answer, and he spoke of it repeatedly in weeks to come. I was glad he’d had this chance to question Dr. Coles and, even more, that he’d responded as he did to what the doctor had replied. He often misses what most others think to be “the main point” of an essay he has read or lecture he has heard, which may be one reason why the comprehension questions on a standardized exam sometimes befuddled him. Instead, he tends to fasten on a piece of what he’s read or heard that corresponds to something he already cares about and finds his own unusual back-channel to the essence of the work or to the meaning of the man, which leaves him with a sense of intimate association. One result of this, I think is that his memories of these encounters with a person, or a passage of prose writing, or a poem, linger in his mind for weeks to come, as I discover when he later weaves a detail or a phrase he struck upon into a talk we have on something that appears to be entirely unrelated.

“Not the place but the path, not the goal but the way,” he wrote to me a few months later, recollecting Dr. Coles’s response. I recognized the gratitude he felt to Dr. Coles for reaffirming his belief that pre-established “destinations” were not everything but that “the journey” had some meaning too. I remember thinking how disruptive this idea would be in many of the classrooms that I visit nowadays. The destination shapes the journey in those classrooms, excavating mysteries, invalidating unpredictables, eclipsing whim, excluding risk, denying pilgrimage.

Anthony was able to escape this; most children in his situation can’t. He completed boarding school successfully and was accepted at a four-year college where he studied sociology and literary history. He has since entered graduate school, where he intends to study to become a teacher. Numbers do not tell us all we need to know about our children.

***

Thomas Sobol, the former state commissioner of education in New York, who oversaw the early phases of the standards movement from the last years of the 1980s to the middle 1990s, told a group of future teachers in New York not long ago that he was troubled by the unexpected consequences to which much of this had led. “Standards,” “testing,” and “accountability” have come to be “the current orthodoxy,” he observed. “People say we need these . . . standards to remain competitive in a global economy. They say that we have been too lax. They say that students will rise to meet the expectations of their elders and that teachers will work harder if their feet are held to the fire. They say we will reform our schools by demanding more, and holding students and teachers accountable for the results . . .


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“For the record,” he went on, “I believe in high standards”—a point, it’s worth observing, on which almost every teacher I know fairly well would certainly concur, despite the inclination of some of their harshest critics to assume that those who question the obsessive character of this agenda are in favor of “low standards” and are temperamentally attracted to the goal of mediocrity. “But history teaches us,” said Dr. Sobol, “that every good idea contains the seeds of its own heresy” and “much of what is going on in the name of standards and accountability verges on the heretical . . .

“We are giving kids less and calling it more,” “limiting what we teach” to what “we can easily measure,” pushing our students “to focus on memorizing information, then regurgitating fact.” The student’s job, he said, should not be only to absorb information, but to make connections, find new patterns, imagine new possibilities . . . ” But imagination and inquiry are “not a big item” in the testing and accountability agenda, he went on. “Choosing the right answer to someone else’s question is what counts.”

Reflecting on “a stifling uniformity of practice” that the testing movement has imposed on many public schools—with the result, he said, that “thinking, feeling people” are not given “room to think and feel”—he spoke of aspects of a child’s education that cannot be measured by exams. “Education involves the heart as well as the mind . . . Learning entails play and risk-taking as well as ordered study.” But, he said, “we don’t have time for these things anymore.” As our students “cram away” in preparation for exams, what we are giving them now in many places is “a stripped-down curriculum” and “instruction devoid of passion and of meaning.”

Despite the stirrings of resistance to these policies, he said, “the juggernaut rolls on . . . Few of us expect it to change.” Those who work in public schools cannot “long endure the pressure” they are under now, and “the political system simply won’t permit” us to deny diplomas to large numbers of our high school students, “turning them out into the streets . . . ” At some point, he said, “in five years, or ten, or twenty, the rules and practices of the standards era will begin to seem old-fashioned . . . Someday the frenzy will be over. Someday we will come to understand that we have been eating poisoned grain.”

A teacher who heard him said that he seemed close to tears as he implored them not to do the same. “Raise your voices,” he advised these neophyte instructors—even if you should “be shouted down. Future generations demand it . . . Your integrity demands it.”

In his lecture, Dr. Sobol did not differentiate between the consequences that the testing juggernaut, as he had worded it, has had in inner-city schools and those in wealthier communities, although a passing mention he had made of places where “all learning” has been “focused on the test” (and where, he added, “children no longer read literature—they read disconnected sentences” and “answer practice questions based upon them”) seemed to be a reference to the schools in which the drill-curricula are now most likely to be found. He did, moreover, note that we do not give all our students opportunities to learn what they would

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need to know in order to succeed within the terms of the agenda he had just described. Those who do not have such opportunities, he said, “are usually poor and disproportionately of color,” and he termed inequities like these “beyond illegal and unfair—they are immoral.”

I disagreed with only two points in his talk. I thought the tests-and-standards movement, as it had emerged during the middle and late 1980s, had been loaded with a coarse utilitarian toxicity and a demeaning anti-human view of childhood right from the start. I also did not share his faith that our political system would reject a set of policies that sends so many thousands of our students to the streets “without high school diplomas,” as he’d stated this. The political system has permitted millions of poor children to be sent into the streets without diplomas now for many generations—numbers that are almost certain to increase under the do-or-die agenda that has been enforced by nonpromotion policies. (Many of such students too, as we have seen, are being channeled into training programs that prepare them for the workforce so that they will not, in any case, be “in the streets” where their potentially disruptive presence might arouse political anxiety.)

Still, the revelations he had offered to these future teachers, and the eloquence with which he voiced them, seemed extraordinary, coming as they did from a respected leader in their field who had participated in the early phases of a movement he had subsequently come to question. When I later had a chance to meet with Dr. Sobol in New York, I had the thought of asking Anthony if he would like to come with me. It didn’t work out, because I didn’t have the time to plan it with him in advance. It was simply a last-minute notion that occurred to me because I thought that Dr. Sobol would have liked this nonconforming and intelligent young man who had been forced to pay a painful price at first for certain of those unexpected consequences the commissioner so powerfully condemned, but had never buckled under, never settled for the predetermined road, and had prevailed at length and found his own way to defend and to affirm his own unique ideals. They are both dissenters, in this sense; I thought they would have taken to each other.


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how to not teachby Derrick Jensen

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It’s the first day of class, I walk in, wearing an old suit jacket—the only one I’ve got—because the department wants the new teaching assistants to look professional. Although the suit is old—old enough to have been worn at my brother’s wedding when I was a teenager, later on my disastrous prom date, and not much since—it doesn’t look quite so ridiculous as one might think. I haven’t gained that much weight in the past decade. (Oh, okay, so I have, but the jacket was cavernous in the first place, and now I just don’t button it.) Nonetheless, the first thing I do is take it off. I put it on the back of a chair, I look at the college students—some young, fresh off the farm (literally: the school is at the eastern fringe of the Palouse, some of the finest farm country in the West); some foreign students, mainly from Asia; some continuing students much older than I—all sitting in rows facing me. The rows give me a headache. I look around the room, and see a cork bulletin board by the door. The board is filled with advertisements for Visa, Mastercard, vacation specials, and, boldly enough, prewritten term papers. I walk to the back of the room. The students’ eyes follow me. “Advertising,” I say, “has no place in the classroom.” I pull the ads from the wall and throw them in the trash. I walk to the front. Their eyes still follow me. I smile, and the first thing one of them says to me is, “Shouldn’t you put all of that into the recycling bin?”

I wasn’t always comfortable in front of a classroom. At first I was scared. That was years before, when I was twenty-three and going to graduate school only so I could continue my collegiate high jumping career (I broke my foot anyway, and so didn’t get to jump). An instructor I knew told me he had a way to get my school paid for: I was to be his teaching assistant for two undergraduate English classes. But before he’d take me on, I had to look up a word in the dictionary. The word was sinecure. I’d never heard of it.

Here’s what I read, “Sinecure: an office which has revenue without employment; any office or post which gives remuneration without requiring much work, responsibility, etc.” It sounded good to me. Even better, I discovered it was a reasonably accurate description of my duties, or lack thereof. I got paid to sit in the back of the class and watch him teach, and then to talk with him for long hours after his evening classes ended (I later learned his marriage was unhappy, and he was perhaps not quite so interested in our philosophical discussions as he


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was in staying away from home). Occasionally I graded a paper or two, and a couple of times I got up in front of class.

My lectures were more or less disasters. I stammered. I forgot what I was going to say. But the times I didn’t forget were, in retrospect, even worse, because I didn’t do much more than unthinkingly pass on to the students the speeches my teachers had presumably unthinkingly passed on to me. The students seemed as little moved or informed by these speeches as I had been. Once, I fulminated that they must never use prepositions to end sentences with. Another time I gave a tired talk on spelling. Always absent in all of this—because it wasn’t yet present in me, and you can’t give what you don’t have—was the understanding that the only real job of any teacher, especially a writing teacher, is to help students find themselves. Everything else is either distraction, or at best, window dressing.

Here’s something I wish I would have told my students. The word education (and I mention this derivation in my book A Language Older Than Words) comes from the latin root e-ducere, meaning “to lead forth” or “to draw out.” Originally it was a midwife’s term meaning “to be present at the birth of.” I would contrast that with the root of the word seduce, which is closely related, but with a striking difference. To educe is to lead forth; to seduce is to lead astray. I wish I had talked about that with those students years ago, and I wish I had suggested that they think about that difference the next weekend. As they approached someone of their preferred gender, perhaps they would have said, “I would like to educe you” (which would have been great if their intended happened to be conversant in Latin, but otherwise might have led the other to say, “Get away from me, you perv!”). More to the point, I wish I had suggested that our departments of education be called, if we were honest, departments of seduction, for that is what they do: lead us away from ourselves.

On second thought, maybe it’s best I didn’t talk about that. I was having enough trouble talking about prepositions, and spelling. Who knows what sort of trouble I could have gotten into had I begun talking about the relationship between classrooms and seduction.

The most important piece of technology in any classroom is the second hand of the clock. The purpose is to teach millions of students the identical prayer: Please God, make it move faster.

A few years after college, I became a high jump coach at North Idaho College, a junior college in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Because self-confidence plays an even more important role in high jumping than in most other sports—if you don’t believe you can make a jump, you almost certainly won’t, and if you do believe you’ll make it, you probably still won’t, which means you have to know you’ll make it such that all self-consciousness disappears—my coaching consisted almost exclusively of praise. This doesn’t mean I never gave technical advice. It merely means I was creative in how I gave it, making certain that no matter what we talked about on the surface, the overriding message was the same: you’re an excellent jumper. For

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example, I never said, “Todd, your form stinks.” Instead, I’d say, “Todd, your leg strength is amazing, because you’re popping way up in the air, and your form isn’t really helping you. When your form comes together with your leg strength, you’re going to be unbeatable.” Instead of fixating on his form, he fixated on his leg strength.

And of course I’d never lie. The trick to teaching through praise is that you must never fib. People are so used to criticism and so unused to praise that praise makes them suspicious: If you lie, they’ll smell it faster than a fart in a car. It’s far better, and far less work, to simply search for the good in the first place and build from there than it is to have to rebuild credibility lost through a demonstrable untrue compliment (and besides, telling the positive truth keeps the focus where it belongs: on your students and their skills, rather than on you and your lack of credibility).

I prohibited my jumpers from saying anything negative about anything within fifty yards of the pit. I’d bait them, asking, for example, how they like the weather on a drizzly March day, and if they took the bait and complained, I’d make them run a lap. Then they’d have to tell me what they liked about the weather—they in their track shorts, me in my down jacket. At first they complained about the obvious artificiality of this prohibition—for which complaint I once again made them run, until they learned to hold their complaints until we got away from the pit—but I knew I was headed in the right direction the first meet with miserable weather. All the other jumpers were complaining about the cold, the wet, the unstable footing for their approach (as I had complained about all these when I was a jumper). The jumpers from North Idaho, on the other hand, were listing ways the weather gave them an advantage: “My approach is slower, so I’m less likely to lose footing on the corner.” They fixated on the good.

They also jumped very well. All of my eligible jumpers qualified for nationals. All became All-Americans or honorable mention All-Americans. One became national champion.

Someone asked me once at a talk why I so stress the positive with my students yet am such an unstinting critic of those who run our culture and who are killing the planet. I answered immediately, “Power. If I’ve got power or authority over someone, it’s my responsibility to use that only to help them. It’s my job to accept and praise them into becoming who they are. But if I see someone misusing power to harm someone else, it’s just as much my responsibility to stop them, using whatever means necessary.”

Soon enough, we spread through the building, going into all the empty classrooms, ripping down advertisements wherever we found them. For weeks after, students brought in advertisements they’d ripped off the walls of other buildings on campus. They started sealing up postage-paid envelopes to return to advertisers. Recycling bins overflowed.

When I entered a classroom for real, and not as a sinecure, many years later, at Eastern Washington University, I immediately changed the name of the course from “Principles of Thinking and Writing” to “Intellectual, Philosophical, and Spiritual Liberation and


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Exploration for the Fine, Very Fine, and Extremely Fine Human Being.” We moved the desks out of rows, and into a circle. As I went around the classroom taking roll, I asked each student what he or she loved. They told me stories of their families, of farming, of their art, of their love for sports. But even more than learning details of their lives, I learned that they were natural storytellers. Just as my jumpers hadn’t really needed to be taught how to jump, but rather needed to be led forth into becoming the jumpers they already were (one reason I didn’t sweat Todd’s form was that I knew I couldn’t do much about it anyway), so, too, I realized quickly that my writing students didn’t so much need to be taught how to write as they needed to be cheered into becoming the writers they had inside of them. They knew how and where to start a story, how to include appropriate details, how to make the story lead to a payoff. All of this was there in the first stories they told, of what or whom they loved. They just had to realize the gifts they already possessed. I could not create gifts for them from nothing, but, surely and easily, I could help with this.

This, also, is what I say to students on the first day of class: “I once had an instructor—an economics instructor, if you can believe it—who told me, ‘Never believe anything you read, and rarely believe anything you think.’ He was one of the best teachers I’ve ever had.”

I stop, then ask, “Have you ever taken a walk down old railroad tracks? And did you keep walking, walking, walking until you decided you were far enough from town? And then did you take your watch from your pocket (if you even bothered to bring a watch), and place it on the tracks? Did you take a dozen steps and still hear its ticking over the rush of blood in your ears? And when a train came by, did you stand to one side and let the wind blow back your hair, stand trembling with fear and excitement until the last car roared past and you could once again breathe?

“Have you ever seen the stars in the desert, or the moon? Have you lain naked in the dew? When did you last walk barefoot in the snow, watch a falling star, or take a bath in a fast cold river? When was the last time you listened to the piper at the gates of dawn? These are more of the best teachers I’ve ever had.

“But I’ll tell you the best. I used to have a dog—an old cocker spaniel—who never seemed to slow down. He ran this way and that, ears flying and tongue flapping. His tail never stopped, no matter what he did. He routinely ignored me, as has every dog I’ve ever been associated with. The lesson I’ve learned from dogs has been that rules are meant to be acknowledged, and then ignored. Everything that dog did, he did exuberantly, joyously, with an abundance of life. I can’t imagine a better teacher.”

A long breath. They aren’t sure what to make of me. I’m not sure what to make of them either. I say, “Passion, love, hate, fear, hope. The best writing springs from these sources. Life itself springs from these sources, and what is writing without life? Writing and life. Life and writing. One is the stuff of the other, and the other is the stuff of the one. So by definition this is as much a class in life—in passion, love, fear, experience, relation—as it is in writing.

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Be warned. If you’re here purely for credit, hoping to sleep through yet another quarter of semicolons, diagrammed sentences, and five-paragraph essays, this class will be an incredible drag both for you and for me. If you’re not interested in approaching the ragged edge of control where instinct and euphoria set you free from time and consciousness, you would in all honesty be better off in another class. If that’s the case do us both a favor and run, don’t walk, to my supervisor’s office. He and I have an arrangement: I do what I want in the classroom, and he guarantees that if you don’t like the style and want to switch, he’ll place you elsewhere. And that’s okay. My style doesn’t work for everybody. And the fact that it doesn’t work for everyone is not a reflection on either me or you—it’s like having two books on the shelf, one of which is red and the other green. They just don’t match. But if you’re willing to ride the wave, and let the wave ride you, if you want to write from the gut, from the soul, then reach deep into the tiger’s fur and hold on tight, because we’re all in for a wild ride.”

Nobody moves.

“Since it’s my experience that, as Carl Rogers wrote, the only real learning is self-discovered, self-appropriated learning, I won’t try to teach you anything. It’s my job instead to create an atmosphere where you can teach yourself.

“And one of the skills that is oh-so-necessary in these days of decaying mythologies and rampant corporate and governmental doublespeak is the ability to think critically. To question authority, to question everything. My friend Jeannette Armstrong says, ‘We all have cultural, learned behavior systems that have become embedded in our subconscious. These systems act as filters for the way we see the world. They affect our behaviors, our speech patterns and gestures, the words we use, and also the way we gather our thinking. We have to find ways to challenge that continuously. To see things from a different perspective is one of the most difficult things we have to do.’

“She continues, ‘I have to constantly school myself in the deconstruction of what I believe and perceive to be the way things are, to continuously break down in my own mind what I believe, and continuously add to my knowledge and understanding. In other words, never to be satisfied that I’m satisfied. That sounds like I’m dissatisfied, but it doesn’t mean that. It means never to be complacent and think I’ve come to a conclusion about things, to always question my own thinking. I always tell my writing class to start with and hold on to the attitude of saying bullshit to everything. And to be joyful and happy in that process. Because most of the time it’s fear that creates old behaviors and old conflicts. It’s not necessarily that we believe those things, but we know them and so we continue those patterns and behaviors because they’re familiar.’

“So, it’s wonderfully acceptable,” I say, “to disagree with me. It’s wonderfully acceptable to disagree with anyone. Just be agreeable, at all times respectful, in the way you disagree. Be full of thought, and thoughtful in your disagreement.”


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Silence.

“Any questions so far?”

A young man raises his hand.

He says, “You said the word bullshit in class.”

“Yes?”

“Will you say that again? I’ve never heard a teacher say that before.”

“Bullshit,” I say.

Years ago I got into a long conversation with a well-traveled guitarist. He’d played with the best, he said, going back to the sixties. He’d shared stages with everyone from Carlos Santana to Randy California to Jimi Hendrix to Jimmy Page. But the guitarist who’d taught him the most, he said, was an old blues master he’d met when he was a kid. He’d asked the man to teach him how to play, and the man had responded, “I can teach you everything I know in fifteen minutes. Then you just have to go home and practice for fifteen years.”

It’s pretty clear to me the same is true for writing, for high jumping, and for life.

learning to seeby Barry Lopez

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In June 1989, I received a puzzling letter from the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, an invitation to speak at the opening of a retrospective of the work of Robert Adams. The show, “To Make It Home: Photographs of the American West, 1965-1985,” had been organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and would travel to the Los Angeles County Museum and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., before being installed at the Amon Carter, an institution renowned for its photographic collections, in the spring of 1990.

Robert Adams, an un-self-promoting man who has published no commercially prominent book of photographs, is routinely referred to as one of the most important landscape photographers in America, by both art critics and his colleagues. His black-and-white images are intelligently composed and morally engaged. They’re also hopeful, despite their sometimes depressing subject matter—brutalized landscapes and the venality of the American Dream as revealed in suburban life. Adams doesn’t hold himself apart from what he indicts. He photographs with compassion and he doesn’t scold. His pictures are also accessible, to such a degree that many of them seem casual. In 1981 he published Beauty in Photography: Essays in Defense of Traditional Values, one of the clearest statements of artistic responsibility ever written by a photographer.

If there is such a thing as an ideal of stance, technique, vision, and social contribution toward which young photographers might aspire, it’s embodied in this man.

I suspected the Amon Carter had inadvertently invited the wrong person to speak. I’d no knowledge of the history of American photography sufficient to situate Robert Adams in it. I couldn’t speak to the technical perfection of his prints. I’d no credentials as an art critic. As an admirer of the work, of course, I’d have something to say, but it could only be that, the words of an amateur who admired Adams’s accomplishment.

I wondered for days what prompted the invitation. For about fifteen years, before putting my cameras down on September 13, 1981, never to pick them up again, I’d worked as a landscape photographer, but it was unlikely anyone at the Amon Carter knew this. I’d visited the museum in the fall of 1986 to see some of their luminist paintings and had met several of


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the curators, but our conversations could not have left anyone with the impression that I had the background to speak about Adams’s work.

I finally decided to say yes. I wrote and told the person coordinating the program, Mary Lampe, that though I didn’t feel qualified to speak I admired Mr. Adams’s work, and further, I presumed an affinity with his pursuits and ideals as set forth in Beauty in Photography. And I told her I intended to go back and study the work of Paul Strand, Wynn Bullock, Minor White, Harry Callahan, and others who’d been an influence on my own work and thought, in order to prepare my lecture.

Months later, when I arrived at the museum, I asked Ms. Lampe how they had come to invite me and not someone more qualified. She said Mr. Adams had asked them to do so. I sensed she believed Robert Adams and I were good friends and I had to tell her I didn’t know him at all. We’d never met, never corresponded, had not spoken on the phone. I was unaware, even, that it was “Bob” Adams, as Ms. Lampe called him.

“But why did you agree to come?” she asked.

“Out of respect for the work,” I said. “Out of enthusiasm for the work.” I also explained that I was intimidated by the prospect, and that sometimes I felt it was good to act on things like that.

Ms. Lampe subsequently sent Robert Adams a tape of my talk. He and I later met and we now correspond and speak on the phone regularly. He set the course of our friendship in the first sentence of a letter he wrote me after hearing my presentation. “Your willingness to speak in my behalf,” he wrote, “confirms my belief in the community of artists.”

He believed from work of mine that he’d read that we shared a sensibility, that we asked similar questions about the relationship between culture and landscape, and that our ethical leanings and our sense of an artist’s social responsibility were similar. He later told me that for these reasons he’d given my name, hopefully but somewhat facetiously, to Ms. Lampe, not knowing the curators and I were acquainted and that they would write me.

I’ve long been attracted to the way visual artists like Robert Adams imagine the world. The emotional impact of their composition of space and light is as clarifying for me as immersion in a beautifully made story. As with the work of a small group of poets I read regularly—Robert Hass, Pattiann Rogers, Garrett Hongo—I find healing in their expressions. I find reasons not to give up.

Though I no longer photograph, I have maintained since 1981 a connection with photographers and I keep up a sort of running conversation with several of them. We talk about the fate of photography in the United States, where of course art is increasingly more commodified

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and where, with the advent of computer manipulation, photography is the art most likely to mislead. Its history as a purveyor of objective reality, the idea that “the camera never lies,” is specious, certainly; but with some artistic endeavors, say those of Cartier-Bresson, Aaron Siskind, or W. Eugene Smith, and in the fields of documentary photography, which would include some news photography, and nature photography, one can assert that the authority of the image lies with the subject. With the modern emphasis on the genius of the individual artist, however, and with the arrival of computer imaging, authority in these areas now more often lies with the photographer. This has become true to such an extent that the reversal that’s occurred—the photographer, not the subject, is in charge—has caused the rules of evidence to be changed in courts of law; and it has foisted upon an unwitting public a steady stream, for example, of fabricated images of wildlife.

As a beginning photographer I was most attracted to color and form, to the emotional consequence of line. It is no wonder, looking back now, that I pored over the images of someone like Edward Weston, or that I felt isolated in some of my pursuits because at the time few serious photographers outside Ernst Haas and Eliot Porter worked as I did in color. I wanted to photograph the streaming of light. For a long while it made no difference whether that light was falling down the stone walls of a building in New York or lambent on the corrugations of a wheat field. Ansel Adams was suggested to me early on as a model, but he seemed to my eye inclined to overstate. I wanted the sort of subtlety I would later come to admire in Bob Adam’s work and in the aerial photographs of Emmet Gowin.

The more I gravitated as a writer toward landscape as a context in which to work out what I was thinking as a young man about issues like justice, tolerance, ambiguity, and compassion, the more I came to concentrate on landforms as a photographer. I valued in particular the work of one or two wildlife photographers shooting in situ, in the bush. (I remember enthusiastically contacting friends about John Dominis’s groundbreaking portfolio of African cat photographs, which appeared in three successive issues of Life in January 1967.) But I was not inclined toward mastering the kind of technical skill it took to make such photographs. More fundamentally, I had misgivings about what I regarded as invasions of the privacy of wild animals. The latter notion I thought so personal an idea I kept it mostly to myself; today, of course, it’s a central concern of wildlife photographers, especially for a contingent that includes Frans Lanting, the late Michio Hoshino, Gary Braasch, Tui De Roy, and the team of Susan Middleton and David Lüttschwager.

I began photographing in a conscientious way in the summer of 1965. I was soon concentrating on landscapes, and in the mid-1970s, with a small list of publication credits behind me, I made an appointment to see Joe Scherschel, an assistant director of the photographic staff at National Geographic. He told me frankly that though my landscape portfolio was up to the standards of the magazine, the paucity of wildlife images and human subjects made it unlikely that he could offer me any assignments. In response I remember thinking this was unlikely to change, for either of us. Discouraged, I started to scale back the effort to market


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my photographs and to make part of my living that way. I continued to make pictures, and I was glad that much of this work was still effectively represented by a stock agency in New York; but by 1978 I knew photography for me was becoming more a conscious exercise in awareness, a technique for paying attention. It would finally turn into a sequestered exploration of light and spatial volume.

Three events in the late 1970s changed the way I understood myself as a photographer. One summer afternoon I left the house for an appointment with an art director in a nearby city. Strapped to the seat of my motorcycle was a box of photographs, perhaps three hundred images representative of the best work I had done. The two-lane road I traveled winds gently through steep mountainous country. When I got to town the photographs were gone. I never found a trace of them, though I searched every foot of the road for two days. The loss dismantled my enthusiasm for photography so thoroughly that I took it for a message to do something else.

In the summer of 1976 my mother was dying of cancer. To ease her burden, and to brighten the sterile room in Lenox Hill Hospital in New York where she lay dying, I made a set of large Cibachrome prints from some of my 35-mm Kodachrome images—a white horse standing in a field of tall wild grasses bounded by a white post-and-plank fence; a faded pink boat trailer from the 1940s, abandoned in the woods; a small copse of quaking aspen, their leaves turning bright yellow on the far side of a remote mountain swamp. It was the only set of prints I would ever make. As good as they were, the change in color balance and the loss of transparency and contrast when compared with the originals, the reduction in sharpness, created a deep doubt about ever wanting to do such a thing again. I hung the images in a few shows, then put them away. I knew if I didn’t start developing and printing my own images, I wouldn’t be entering any more shows.

I winced whenever I saw my photographs reproduced in magazines and books, but I made my peace with that. Time-Life Books was publishing a series then called American Wilderness, each volume of which was devoted to a different landscape—the Maine woods, the Cascade Mountains, the Grand Canyon. I was pleased to see my work included in these volumes, but I realized that just as the distance between what I saw and what I was able to record was huge, so was that between what I recorded and what people saw. Seeing the printed images on the page was like finding one’s haiku published as nineteen-syllable poems.

The third event occurred around the first serious choice I made as a photographer to concentrate on a limited subject. The subject was always light, but I wanted to explore a single form, which turned out to be the flow of water in creeks and rivers near my home. I photographed in every season, when the water was high in February and March, when it was low in August, when it was transparent in July, when it was an opaque jade in December. In 1980 I began to photograph moving water in moonlight, exposures of twenty-five or thirty minutes. These images suffered from reciprocity failure—the color balance in them

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collapsed—but they also recorded something extraordinary, a pattern of flow we cannot actually see. They revealed the organizing principle logicians would one day call a strange attractor.

The streaming of water around a rock is one of the most complex motions of which human beings are aware. The change from a laminar, more or less uniform flow to turbulent flow around a single rock is so abstruse a transition mathematically that even the most sophisticated Cray computer cannot make it through to a satisfactory description.

Aesthetically, of course, no such difficulty exists. The eye dotes on the shift, delights in the scintillating sheeting, the roll-off of light around a rock, like hair responding to the stroke of a brush. Sometimes I photographed the flow of water in sunshine at 1/2000 of a second and then later I’d photograph the same rock in moonlight. Putting the photos side by side, I could see something hidden beneath the dazzle of the high-speed image that compared with our renderings of the Milky Way from space: the random pin-dot infernos of our own and every other sun form a spiraling, geometrical shape motionless to our eyes. In the moonlit photographs, the stray streaks from errant water splashes were eliminated (in light that weak, they occur too quickly to be recorded); what was etched on the film instead were orderly, fundamental lines of flow, created by particle after illuminated particle of gleaming water, as if each were a tracer bullet. (Years later, reading Chaos, James Gleick’s lucid report on chaos theory, I would sit bolt upright in my chair. What I’d photographed was the deep pattern in turbulence, the clothing as it were, of the strange attractor.)

In the months I worked at making these photographs, I came to realize I actually had two subjects as a photographer. First, these still images of a moving thing, a living thing—as close as I would probably ever come to fully photographing an animal. Second, natural light falling on orchards, images of a subject routinely understood as a still life. The orchards near me were mostly filbert orchards. In their change of color and form through the seasons, in the rain and snow that fell through them, in crows that sat on their winter branches, in leaves accumulated under them on bare dark ground, in the wind that coursed them, in the labyrinths of their limbs, ramulose within the imposed order of the orchard plot, I saw the same profundity of life I found in literature.

This was all work I was eager to do, but I would never get to it.

In September 1981 I was working in the Beaufort Sea off the north coast of Alaska with several marine biologists. We were conducting a food-chain survey intended to provide baseline data to guide offshore oil drilling, an impulsive and politically motivated development program funded by the Bureau of Land Management and pushed hard at the time by the Reagan government. On September 12, three of us rendezvoused at Point Barrow with a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel, the Oceanographer. They hoisted us, our gear, and our twenty-foot Boston Whaler aboard and we sailed west into pack ice in the northern Chukchi Sea.


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Scientific field research is sometimes a literally bloody business. In our study we were trying to determine the flow of energy through various “levels” (artificially determined) of the marine food web. To gather data we retrieved plankton and caught fish with different sorts of traps and trawls, and we examined the contents of bearded seal, ringed seal, and spotted seal stomachs. To accomplish the latter, we shot and killed the animals. Shooting seals located us squarely in the moral dilemma of our work, and it occasioned talk aboard the Oceanographer about the barbarousness of science. The irony here was that without these data creatures like the ringed seal could not be afforded legal protection against oil development. The killings were a manifestation of the perversions in our age, our Kafkaesque predicaments.

I was disturbed by the fatal aspects of our work, as were my companions, but I willingly participated. I would later write an essay about the killing, but something else happened during that trip, less dramatic and more profound in its consequences for me.

Late one afternoon, working our way back to the Oceanographer through a snow squall, the three of us came upon a polar bear. We decided to follow him for a few minutes and I got out my cameras. The bear, swimming through loose pack ice, was clearly annoyed by our presence, though in our view we were maintaining a reasonable distance. He very soon climbed out on an ice floe, crossed it, and dropped into open water on the far side. We had to go the long way around in the workboat, but we caught up. He hissed at us and otherwise conveyed his irritation, but we continued idling along beside him.

Eventually we backed off. The bear disappeared in gauze curtains of blowing snow. We returned to the Oceanographer, to a warm meal and dry clothes.

Once the boat was secure and our scientific samples squared away in the lab, I went to my cabin. I dropped my pack on the floor, stripped off my heavy clothes, showered, and lay down in my bunk. I tried to recall every detail of the encounter with the bear. What had he been doing when we first saw him? Did he change direction then? How had he proceeded? Exactly how did he climb out of the water onto the ice floe? What were the mechanics of it? When he shook off seawater, how was it different from a dog shucking water? When he hissed, what color was the inside of his mouth?

I don’t know how long I lay there, a half hour perhaps, but when I was through, when I’d answered these questions and was satisfied that I’d recalled the sequence of events precisely and in sufficient detail, I got up, dressed, and went to dinner. Remembering what happened in an encounter was crucial to my work as a writer, and attending to my cameras during our time with the bear had altered and shrunk my memory of it. While the polar bear was doing something, I was checking f-stops and attempting to frame and focus from a moving boat.

I regarded the meeting as a warning to me as a writer. Having successfully recovered details from each minute, I believed, of that encounter, having disciplined myself to do that, I sensed I wouldn’t pick up a camera ever again.

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Learning to See

It was not solely contact with this lone bear a hundred miles off the northwest coast of Alaska, of course, that ended my active involvement with photography. The change had been coming for a while. The power of the polar bear’s presence, his emergence from the snow squall and his subsequent disappearance, had created an atmosphere in which I could grasp more easily a complex misgiving that had been building in me. I view any encounter with a wild animal in its own territory as a gift, an opportunity to sense the real animal, not the zoo creature, the TV creature, the advertising creature. But this gift had been more overwhelming. In some way the bear had grabbed me by the shirtfront and said, think about this. Think about what these cameras in your hands are doing.

Years later, I’m still thinking about it. Some of what culminated for me that day is easy to understand. As a writer, I had begun to feel I was missing critical details in situations such as this one because I was distracted. I was also starting to feel uncomfortable about the way photographs tend to collapse events into a single moment, about how much they leave out. (Archeologists face a similar problem when they save only what they recognize from a dig. Years afterward, the context long having been destroyed, the archeologist might wonder what was present that he or she didn’t recognize at the time. So begins a reevaluation of the meaning of the entire site.)

I was also disturbed about how nature and landscape photographs, my own and others’, were coming to be used, not in advertising where you took your chances (some photographers at that time began labeling their images explicitly: NO TOBACCO, NO ALCOHOL), but in the editorial pages of national magazines. It is a polite fiction of our era that the average person, including the average art director, is more informed about natural history than an educated person was in Columbus’s age. Because this is not true, the majority of nature photographers who work out in the field have felt a peculiar burden to record accurately the great range of habitat and animal behavior they see, including nature’s “dark” side. (Photographers accepted the fact back then that magazines in the United States, generally speaking, were not interested in photographs of mating animals—unless they were chaste or cute—or in predatory encounters if they were bloody or harrowing, as many were.)

What happened as a result of this convention was that people looking at magazines in the 1970s increasingly came to think of wild animals as vivacious and decorative in the natural world. Promoted as elegant, brave, graceful, sinister, wise, etc., according to their species, animals were deprived of personality and the capacity to be innovative. Every wildlife photographer I know can recount a story of confrontation with an art director in which he or she argued unsuccessfully for an image that told a fuller or a truer story about a particular species of animal in a layout. It was the noble lion, the thieving hyena, and the mischievous monkey, however, who routinely triumphed. A female wolf killing one of her pups, or a male bonobo approaching a female with a prominent erection, was not anything magazine editors were comfortable with.


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In the late seventies, I asked around among several publishers to see whether they might have any interest in a series of disturbing photographs made in a zoo by a woman named Ilya. She’d taken them on assignment for Life, but very few of them were ever published because she’d concentrated on depicting animals apparently driven insane by their incarceration. I remember as particularly unsettling the look of psychosis in the face of a male lion, its mane twisted into knots. I could develop no interest in publishing her work. An eccentric view, people felt. Too distressing.

So, along with a growing political awareness of endangered landscapes and their indigenous animals in the 1970s came, ironically, a more and more dazzling presentation of those creatures in incomplete and prejudicial ways. Photo editors made them look not like what they were but the way editors wanted them to appear—well-groomed, appropriate to stereotype, and living safely apart from the machinations of human enterprise. To my mind there was little difference then between a Playboy calendar and a wildlife calendar. Both celebrated the conventionally gorgeous, the overly endowed, the seductive. I and many other photographers at the time were apprehensive about the implications of this trend.

Another concern I had that September afternoon, a more complicated one, was what was happening to memory in my generation. The advertising injunction to preserve family memories by taking photographs had become so shrill a demand, and the practice had become so compulsive, that recording the event was more important for some than participating in it. The inculcated rationale which grew up around this practice was that to take and preserve family photos was to act in a socially responsible way. The assumption seemed specious to me. My generation was the first to have ready access to inexpensive tape recorders and cameras. Far from recording memories of these talks and events, what we seemed to be doing was storing memories that would never be retrieved, that would never form a coherent narrative. In the same way that our desk drawers and cabinet shelves slowly filled with these “personal” sounds and images, we were beginning, it seemed to me, to live our lives in dissociated bits and pieces. The narrative spine of an individual life was disappearing. The order of events was becoming increasingly meaningless.

This worry, together with the increasingly commercial use to which the work of photographers like myself was being put and the preference for an entertaining but not necessarily coherent landscape of wild animals (images that essentially lied to children), made me more and more reluctant to stay involved. Some of the contemporary photographers I most respect—Lanting, Hoshino, Braasch, De Roy, Jim Brandenburg, Flip Nicklin, Sam Abell, Nick Nichols, Galen Rowell—have managed through the strength of their work and their personal integrity to overcome some of these problems, which are part and parcel of working in a world dominated more and more by commercial interests pursuing business strategies. But I knew I had no gift here to persevere. That realization, and my reluctance to photograph animals in the first place, may have precipitated my decision that day in the Chukchi.

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As a writer, I had yet other concerns, peculiar to that discipline. I had begun to wonder whether my searching for the telling photographic image in a situation was beginning to interfere with my writing about what happened. I was someone who took a long time to let a story settle. I’d begun to suspect that the photographs made while I was in a note-taking stage were starting to lock my words into a pattern, and that the pattern was being determined too early. Photographs, in some way, were introducing preconceptions into a process I wanted to keep fluid. I often have no clear idea of what I’m doing. I just act. I pitch in, I try to stay alert to everything around me. I don’t want to stop and focus on a finished image, which I’m inclined to do as a photographer. I want, instead, to see a sentence fragment scrawled in my notebook, smeared by rain. I don’t want the clean, fixed image right away.

An attentive mind, I’m sure, can see the flaws in my reasoning. Some photographers are doing no more than taking notes when they click the shutter. It’s only after a shoot that they discover what the story is. But by trying to both photograph and write, I’d begun to feel I was attempting to create two parallel but independent stories. The effort had become confusing and draining. I let go of photography partly because its defining process, to my mind, was less congruent with the way I wanted to work.

On June 16, 1979, forty-one sperm whales beached themselves at the mouth of the Siuslaw River on the Oregon coast, about one hundred miles from my home. I wrote a long essay about the stranding but didn’t start work on it until after I’d spent two days photographing the eclipse of these beasts’ lives and the aftermath of their deaths. That was the last time I attempted to do both things.

Perhaps the most rarefied of my concerns about photography that day in the Chukchi was one that lay for me at the heart of photography: recording a fleeting pattern of light in a defined volume of space. Light always attracted me. Indeed, twenty-five years after the fact, I can still vividly recall the light falling at dusk on a windbreak of trees in Mitchell, Oregon. It rendered me speechless when I saw it, and by some magic I managed to get it down on film. The problem of rendering volume in photography, however, was one I never solved beyond employing the conventional solutions of perspective and depth of field. I could recognize spatial volume successfully addressed in the work of other photographers—in Adams’s work, for example, partly because so many of his photographs do not have an object as a subject. Finding some way myself to render volume successfully in a photograph would mean, I believed, walking too far away from my work as a writer. And, ultimately, it was as a writer that I felt more comfortable.

I miss making photographs. A short while ago I received a call from a curator at the Whitney Museum in New York named May Castleberry. She had just mounted a show called “Perpetual Mirage: Photographic Narratives of the Desert West” and I had been able to


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provide some minor assistance with it. She was calling now to pursue a conversation we’d begun at the time about Rockwell Kent, an illustrator, painter, and socialist widely known in the thirties, forties, and fifties. She wanted to hang a selection of his “nocturnes,” prints and drawings Kent had made of people under starlit night skies. She was calling to see what I could suggest about his motivation.

Given Kent’s leanings toward Nordic myth and legend and his espousal of Teddy Roosevelt’s “strenuous life,” it seemed obvious to me that he would want to portray his heroic (mostly male) figures against the vault of the heavens. But there were at least two other things at work here, I believed. First, Kent was strongly drawn to high latitudes, like Greenland, where in winter one can view the deep night sky for weeks on end. It was not really the “night” sky, however, he was drawing; it was the sunless sky of a winter day. Quotidian life assumes mythic proportions here not because it’s heroic, but because it’s carried out beneath the stars.

Secondly, I conjectured, because Kent was an artist working on flat surfaces, he sought, like every such artist, ways to suggest volume, to make the third dimension apparent. Beyond what clouds provide, the daytime sky has no depth; it’s the night sky that gives an artist volume. While it takes an extraordinary person—the light and space artist James Turrell, say—to make the celestial vault visible in sunshine, many artists have successfully conveyed a sense of the sky’s volume by painting it at night.

The conceit can easily grow up in a photographer that he or she has pretty much seen all the large things—the range of possible emotion to be evoked with light, the contrasts to be made by arranging objects in different scales, problems in the third and fourth dimension. But every serious photographer, I believe, has encountered at some point ideas unanticipated and dumbfounding. The shock causes you to reexamine all you’ve assumed about your own work and the work of others, especially the work of people you’ve never particularly understood. This happened most recently for me in seeing the photography of Linda Connor. While working on a story about international air freight, I became so disoriented, flying every day from one spot on the globe to another thousands of miles away, I did not know what time I was living in. Whatever time it was, it was out of phase with the sun, a time not to be dialed up on a watch, mine or anyone else’s.

At a pause in this international hurtling, during a six-hour layover in Cape Town, I went for a ride with an acquaintance. He drove us out to Clifton Bay on the west side of Table Mountain. I was so dazed by my abuse of time that I was open to thoughts I might otherwise never have had. One of those thoughts was that I could recognize the physicality of time. We can discern the physical nature of space in a picture, grasp the way, for example, Robert Adams is able to photograph the air itself, making it visible like a plein air painter. In Cape Town that day I saw what I came to call indigenous time. It clung to the flanks of Table

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Mountain. It resisted being absorbed into my helter-skelter time. It seemed not yet to have been subjugated by Dutch and British colonial expansion, as the physical landscape so clearly had been. It was time apparent to the senses, palpable. What made me believe I was correct in this perception was that, only a month before, I’d examined a collection of Linda Connor’s work, a book called Luminance. I realized there at Table Mountain that she’d photographed what I was looking at. She’d photographed indigenous time.

I’d grasped Ms. Connor’s photographs in some fashion after an initial pass, but I hadn’t sensed their depth, their power, what Gerard Manley Hopkins called “the achieve of the thing.” With this new insight I wrote her an excited note, an attempt to thank her for work that opened the door to a room I’d never explored.

One of the great blessings of our modern age, a kind of redemption for its cruelties and unmitigated greed, is that one can walk down to a corner bookstore and find a copy of Ms. Connor’s book. Or of Robert Adam’s What We Brought: The New World, or Frans Lanting’s Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape, or, say, Mary Peck’s Chaco Canyon: A Center and Its World, and then be knocked across the room by a truth one had not, until that moment, clearly discerned.

It is more than illumination, though, more than a confirmation of one’s intuition, aesthetics, or beliefs that comes out of the perusal of such a photographer’s images. It’s regaining the feeling that one is not cut off from the wellsprings of intelligence and goodwill, of sympathy for human plight.

I do not know, of course, why the photographers I admire, even the ones I know, photograph, but I am acutely aware that without the infusion of their images hope would wither in me. I feel an allegiance to their work more as a writer than as someone who once tried to see in this way, perhaps because I presume we share certain principles related to the effort to imagine or explain.

It is correct, I think, as Robert Adams wrote me that day, to believe in a community of artists stimulated by and respectful of one another’s work. But it’s also true that without an audience (of which we’re all a part) the work remains unfinished, unfulfilled. A photographer seeks intimacy with the world and then endeavors to share it. Inherent in that desire to share is a love of humanity. In different media, and from time to time, we have succeeded, I believe, in helping one another understand what is going on. We have come to see that, in some way, this is our purpose with each other.


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the sky is falling!by Art Spiegelman

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I tend to be easily unhinged. Minor mishaps—a clogged drain, running late for an appointment—send me into a sky-is-falling tizzy. It’s a trait that can leave one ill-equipped for coping with the sky when it actually falls. Before 9/11 my traumas were all more or less self-inflicted, but outrunning the toxic cloud that had moments before been the north tower of the World Trade Center left me reeling on that faultline where World History and Personal History collide – the intersection my parents, Auschwitz survivors, had warned me about when they taught me to always keep my bags packed.

It took a long time to put the burning towers behind me. Personal history aside, zip codes seemed to have something to do with the intensity of response. Long after uptown New Yorkers resumed their daily jogging in Central Park, those of us living in Lower Manhattan found our neighborhood transformed into one of those suburban gated communities as we flashed IDs at the police barriers on 14th Street before being allowed to walk home. Only when I traveled to a university in the Midwest in early October 2001 did I realize that all New Yorkers were out of their minds compared to those for whom the attack was an abstraction. The assault on the Pentagon confirmed that the carnage in New York City was indeed an attack on America, not one more skirmish on foreign soil. Still, the small town I visited in Indiana – draped in flags that reminded me of the garlic one might put on a door to ward off vampires – was at least as worked up over a frat house’s zoning violations as with threats from “raghead terrorists.” It was as if I’d wandered into an inverted version of Saul Steinberg’s famous map of America seen from Ninth Avenue, where the known world ends at the Hudson; in Indiana everything east of the Alleghenies was very, very far away.

One of my near-death realizations as the dust first settled on Canal Street was the depth of my affection for the chaotic neighborhood that I can honestly call home. Allegiance to this unmelted nugget in the melting pot is as close as I comfortably get to patriotism. I wasn’t able to imagine myself leaving my city for safety in, say, the south of France, then opening my Herald Tribune at some café to read that New York City had been turned into radioactive rubble. The realization that I’m actually a “rooted” cosmopolitan is referred to in the fourth of the No Towers comix pages that follow, but the unstated epiphany that underlies all the pages is only implied: I made a vow that morning to return to making comix full-time despite


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the fact that comix can be so damn labor intensive that one has to assume that one will live forever to make them.

In those first few days after 9/11, I got lost constructing conspiracy theories about my government’s complicity in what had happened that would have done a Frenchman proud. (My susceptibility for conspiracy goes back a long ways but had reached its previous peak after the 2000 elections.) Only when I heard paranoid Arab Americans blaming it all on the Jews did I reel myself back in, deciding it wasn’t essential to know precisely how much my “leaders” knew about the hijackings in advance – it was sufficient that they immediately instrumentalized the attack for their own agenda. While I was going off the deep end in my studio, my wife, Françoise, was out impersonating Joan of Arc – finding temporary shelter for Tribeca friends who’d been rendered homeless, sneaking into the cordoned-off areas to bring water to rescue workers and even, as art editor of The New Yorker, managing to wrest a cover image from me, a black-on-black afterimage of the towers published six days after the attack.

I’d spent much of the decade before the millennium trying to avoid making comix, but from some time in 2002 till September 2003 I devoted myself to what became a series of ten large-scale pages about September 11 and its aftermath. It was originally going to be a weekly series, but many of the pages took me at least five weeks to complete, so I missed even my monthly deadlines. (How did the newspaper cartoonists of the early twentieth century manage it? Was there amphetamine in Hearst’s water coolers?) I’d gotten used to channeling my modest skills into writing essays and drawing covers for The New Yorker. Like some farmer being paid to not grow wheat, I reaped the greater rewards that came from letting my aptitude for combining the two disciplines lie fallow.

A restlessness with The New Yorker that predated 9/11 grew as the magazine settled back down long before I could. I wanted to make comix – after all, disaster is my muse! – but the magazine’s complacent tone didn’t seem conducive to communicating hysterical fear and panic. At the beginning of 2002, while I was still taking notes toward a strip, I got a fortuitous offer to do a series of pages on any topic I liked from my friend Michael Naumann, who had recently become the editor and publisher of Germany’s weekly broadsheet newspaper, Die Zeit. It allowed me to retain my rights in other languages and came complete with a promise of no editorial interference – an offer no cartoonist in his right mind could refuse. Even one in his wrong mind.

The giant scale of the color newsprint pages seemed perfect for oversized skyscrapers and outsized events, and the idea of working in single page units corresponded to my existential conviction that I might not live long enough to see them published. I wanted to sort out the fragments of what I’d experienced from the media images that threatened to engulf what I actually saw, and the collagelike nature of a newspaper page encouraged my impulse to juxtapose my fragmentary thoughts in different styles.

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The pivotal image from my 9/11 morning – one that didn’t get photographed or videotaped into public memory but still remains burned onto the inside of my eyelids several years later – was the image of the looming north tower’s glowing bones just before it vaporized. I repeatedly tried to paint this with humiliating results but eventually came close to capturing the vision of disintegration digitally on my computer. I managed to place some sequences of my most vivid memories around that central image but never got to draw others.

I’d hoped to draw the harrowing drive through a panicked city to retrieve our then-nine-year-old son, Dash, from the United Nations School that we thought a likely target that morning and, once we were all reunited, my breaking down in tears that shook my kids up far more than the events that precipitated my sobs.

I intended to do a sequence about my daughter, Nadja, being told to dress in red, white and blue on her first day at the Brooklyn high school she was transferred to while her school in Ground Zero was being used as a triage center. I forbade her to go ranting that I hadn’t raised my daughter to become a goddamn flag; she placated me by explaining she had the perfect jumper for the occasion.

I planned a “terror sex” sequence about the rumors of women patriotically rushing into the wreckage to give comfort to rescue workers at night and noted one Tribeca bachelor friend’s wistful observation that those first days were “a really great time for picking up girls.” (I responded that I couldn’t imagine anything more detumescent than those two 110-story towers collapsing. )

I had anticipated that the shadows of the towers might fade while I was slowly sorting through my grief and putting it into boxes. I hadn’t anticipated that the hijackings of September 11 would themselves be hijacked by the Bush cabal that reduced it all to a war recruitment poster. At first, Ground Zero had marked a Year Zero as well. Idealistic peace signs and flower shrines briefly flourished at Union Square, the checkpoint between lower Manhattan and the rest of the city. That was all washed away by the rains and the police as the world hustled forward into our “New Normal.” When the government began to move into full dystopian Big Brother mode and hurtle America into a colonialist adventure in Iraq—while doing very little to make America genuinely safer beyond confiscating nail clippers at the airports—all the rage I’d suppressed after the 2000 election, all the paranoia I’d barely managed to squelch immediately after 9/11, returned with a vengeance. New traumas began competing with still-fresh wounds and the nature of my project began to mutate.

I’d never wanted to be a political cartoonist. I work too slowly to respond to transient events while they’re happening. (It took me 13 years to grapple with World War II in Maus!) Besides, nothing has a shorter shelf-life than angry caricatures of politicians, and I’d often harbored notions of working for posterity – notions that seemed absurd after being reminded how ephemeral even skyscrapers and democratic institutions are.


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As the series got rolling, I found my own “coalition of the willing” to publish it along with Die Zeit. Most of the distinguished newspapers and magazines that found a way to accommodate the large format, quirky content and erratic schedule were in the “old Europe” – France, Italy, the Netherlands, England – where my political views hardly seemed extreme. The concept of an overtly partisan press has a lot to recommend it. In America, my reception was decidedly less enthusiastic. Outside the left-leaning alternative press, mainstream publications that had actively solicited work from me (including the New York Review of Books and the New York Times as well as The New Yorker) fled when I offered these pages or excerpts from the series. Only the weekly Forward, a small-circulation English-language vestige of the once-proud daily Yiddish broadsheet, enlisted and ran them all prominently. I pointed out to the Forward’s editor that my pages, unlike the Maus pages that they’d once serialized, wouldn’t have much specifically Jewish content. Offering me the Right of Return, he shrugged and said, “It’s okay – you’re Jewish.”

The climate of discourse in America shifted dramatically just as I concluded the series. What was once unsayable now began to appear outside the marginalized alternative press and late-night cable comedy shows. A profile of me in the Arts section of the New York Times in the fall of 2003 even included the very panel of me feeling “equally terrorized” by al-Qaeda and by my own government that had made some editors visibly shudder two years earlier. Sigh! It’s hard to be an artist who’s consistently Seconds Ahead of His Time.

What changed? Basically, America entered its pre-election political season. Free debate is expected as proof of Democracy in action. And though it has been an enormous relief to hear, urgent issues get an airing again, I was disappointed that vigorous criticism had been staved off until it could be contained as part of our business as usual. The feelings of dislocation reflected in these No Towers pages arose in part from the lack of outcry against the outrages while they were being committed.

Still, time keeps flying and even the New Normal gets old. My strips are now a slow-motion diary of what I experienced while seeking some provisional equanimity – though three years later, I’m still ready to lose it all at the mere drop of a hat or a dirty bomb. I still believe the world is ending, but I concede that it seems to be ending more slowly than I once thought... so I figured I’d make a book.

Art Spiegelman

New York City, February 16, 2004

the sky is falling!by Art Spiegelman

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shadow boxingby Aaron Rosen

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The cartoonist Art Spiegelman watched first hand as the ‘glowing bones’ of the World Trade Center’s north tower shivered and collapsed on the morning of 11 September 2001. After he and his wife retrieved their daughter from near the foot of the towers—where she had just started high school—they rushed across town to collect their son. With his family safely reunited, Spiegelman broke down into tears. Shaken as he was, and convinced more than ever that the world was ending—even now, in the Preface to No Towers, he only concedes that it ‘seems to be ending more slowly than I once thought’—Spiegelman began that same day to try and draft some image of what he had witnessed. At the prompting of his wife, an editor at the New Yorker, he composed the cover image for the magazine’s first edition after 11 September. Inspired by the black-on-black paintings of Ad Reinhardt, Spiegelman’s design sets the varnished silhouettes of the fallen towers against a deeper field of black. Printed just six days after the attacks, this aching image of absence inspired the cover for what is now In the Shadow of No Towers, Spiegelman’s comic book narrative of 9/11.

A tall slab of a book—one that noses above its peers on the bookshelf as the towers themselves once presided over the New York skyline—No Towers reproduces a series of ten broadsheet pages composed by Spiegelman between September 2001 and August 2003. Originally serialized in Die Zeit, which commissioned the works, the strips also appeared in several other prominent European publications, including the London Review of Books. In America, however, mainstream publications such as the New Yorker and New York Times shied away from the sharp political content.

Published as a book in time for the third anniversary of 11 September, the work was destined for a factious reception. In America, Republican readers were nettled by what one critic has called Spiegelman’s allergic aversion to ‘taking sides with his own country against its enemies’. On the other hand, Democrats, and a broad swath of Europeans, saw in him a sort of comic avenger; cheering his references to ‘that creature in the White House’, and chuckling appreciatively at his images of an impish, trigger-happy Bush—holding an American flag in one hand and brandishing a pistol in the other. While these barbs are sometimes trite, or needlessly acerbic—Spiegelman ridicules America’s ‘red states’ as the place ‘where the 44% of Americans who don’t believe in evolution tend to gather’—at its best Spiegelman’s political


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commentary is wryly incisive. His drawing of a shabby bald eagle croaking out shibboleths—‘Everything’s changed! Awk! . . . Go out and shop! Awk . . . Be Afraid!’—sums up the content of much post-9/11 discourse.

Yet to evaluate No Towers solely as a political cartoon is to miss what makes the narrative so artistically significant, both as a work in itself and as an integral part of Spiegelman’s oeuvre. Rendered in styles ranging from traditional pen and ink to computer-generated graphics, No Towers employs a hectic assortment of iconography culled from early-twentieth-century comics as well as vintage trading cards, Seventies underground ‘comix’ and contemporary advertisements. For Michiko Kakutani, writing in The New York Times (31 August 2004), this scattered style accurately evokes ‘the chaos and cacophony of 9/11’. But while this is undoubtedly one effect of Spiegelman’s bricolage, it lends us little specific insight into his imagery. Why is it that Spiegelman finds classic comic strips in particular such a compelling source for narrating the story of 9/11? Or, to quote a caption from No Towers,

why is it that for Spiegelman the blast that disintegrated those Lower Manhattan towers also disinterred the ghosts of some Sunday supplement stars born on nearby Park Row about a century earlier?

In the first instance, as Spiegelman explains in the supplement to No Towers, it was the apparent irrelevance of these comic characters that made them such appropriate protagonists. In the aftermath of the attacks, he recalls,

my mind kept wandering. I found no solace in [poetry or] music of any kind . . . it seemed too obscenely exquisite. The only cultural artifacts that could get past my defenses to flood my eyes and brain with something other than images of burning towers were old comic strips; vital, unpretentious ephemera from the optimistic dawn of the twentieth century.

Reincarnating the twin towers as the rascally Katzenjammer Kids, and recasting himself as a host of characters—from Little Nemo to Jiggs, Ignatz Mouse, and Happy Hooligan—allows Spiegelman to introduce a protective barrier between himself and the events of 9/11.

At the same time as these images attenuate the traumas of the recent past, they also combat a more distant trauma:

Outrunning the toxic cloud that had moments before been the north tower of the World Trade Center [Spiegelman writes in his Preface] left me reeling on that faultline where World History and Personal History collide—the intersection my parents, Auschwitz survivors, had warned me about . . .

What Spiegelman must outrun, then, is not only the choking smoke of the present, but what Thane Rosenbaum, in the title of novel, calls the ‘secondhand smoke’ of Auschwitz: the received memories of the Shoah which threaten to turn the present into the past. If he

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is to successfully fend off these inherited traumas, Spiegelman must, in No Towers, imagine himself as something other than his parents.

To do so, Spiegelman must escape an iconography of his own design. In Maus, his two-volume opus about the Holocaust—published in 1986 and 1992, when it won the Pulitzer Prize—Spiegelman used animals to tell the story of his parents’ survival in wartime Poland. Alternating between fraught interviews with his father in the present and scenes from his father’s memories of the past, Maus employs a deceptively simple iconography: Germans are depicted as cats, Jews as mice. While no such feline predators appear in No Towers, Spiegelman recurrently depicts himself as mouse—or more precisely as maus—in seven of the work’s ten pages. Adopting the guises of Little Nemo, Ignatz and other characters is Spiegelman’s strategy for staving off this identification, for imagining himself as something other than maus, in a time and a place other than Auschwitz. Innocuous old comics, then, are a critical bulwark against the past; a defense not against memory, but against the post-traumatic consciousness in which one trauma is allowed to seep dangerously into another, making the past predictive of the present.

And yet, already on the second page of No Towers, this defence appears to crumble. Underneath a poster for his missing brain—‘last seen in Lower Manhattan, mid-September 2001’—Spiegelman dozes over his drawing board. His dreams are a traumatic stew of past and present. ‘Equally terrorized by Al-Qaeda and by his own government’—a scimitar-wielding terrorist looms to the left and a gun-toting President Bush threatens from the right. On his desk a ragtag assortment of comic strip characters stare out, disoriented, at the viewer. But while these characters pop up in later pages, often with Spiegelman assuming their identities, the very first guise which he assumes, critically, is one of his own making: maus.

By the next page this image has multiplied into a series of 16 small grey panels in which Spiegelman—qua maus—sucks nervously away at one cigarette after another. What first appears to be a box of Camels, however, is a pack of ‘Cremo Lights’, the macabre brand—its logo is the puffing chimney of a crematorium—familiar from Maus. Thus, rather than calming Spiegelman’s anxieties about the present, smoking compounds them, symbolically piping in the traumas of the past. If, as Spiegelman put it in Maus, his father bled history, here Spiegelman breathes it. ‘I remember my father trying to describe what the smoke in Auschwitz smelled like,’ Spiegelman muses in the first of these panels. ‘The closest he got,’ he continues, ‘was telling me it was . . . “indescribable”.’ Silence follows as Spiegelman exhales a series of slow swirling rings. Suddenly, struck by a realization, he blurts out: ‘That’s exactly what the air in Lower Manhattan smelled like after Sept. 11!’ The commingling is darkly alluring for Spiegelman, promising to satisfy a deep epistemological fantasy, his desire to know ‘what it was really like’ for his parents in Auschwitz. And yet, the equivalence—even between ‘indescribables’—is a dangerous one. While Spiegelman’s traumatic associations might confuse the differences, the secondhand smoke that seeps from Ground Zero must not be mistaken for the miasma of Holocaust memory. Even if such an elision of history were acceptable—and it is not—this double asphyxiation leaves scarce if any room for living.


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And so it is that, after reaching this saturation point with the past, Spiegelman turns increasingly to other comic characters. Even so, the Holocaust past stubbornly resurfaces as even the most innocent characters transmogrify into mäuse. On page six, Spiegelman imagines himself as Little Nemo, the adolescent hero of Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland. In each episode of the classic strip, Nemo toddles around in his nightclothes enjoying the surreal adventures of Slumberland, only to awaken abruptly and find it has all been a dream. Here, in Spiegelman’s homage—signed McSpiegelman—it is a ‘mausketeer’ version of Nemo who wakes up, disoriented, on the floor. While his mother clucks reassuringly—‘Hush, you fell out of bed, sweetie’—her presence is unnerving. As we know from Maus, Spiegelman’s mother committed suicide in 1968. More jarringly still, a menacing green gas mask obscures her face. Evoking the doubly toxic smoke that pervaded page three, the gas mask also recalls Spiegelman’s admission in Maus that, while growing up, ‘sometimes I’d fantasize Zyklon B coming out of our shower instead of water’. As these associations make clear, Spiegelman’s dreams are Jewish nightmares; a point only exacerbated by the panels above. Barking invectives at a passing Spiegelman, a homeless woman shouts: ‘You damn Kikes—You did it! . . . Dirty Jew! We’ll hang you from the lamp posts, one by one!’

Despite all attempts to imagine himself otherwise, in the end Spiegelman is— invariably—the man in the maus mask. In the final page of No Towers, he places himself amidst a crowd of comic characters—among them Doonesbury, Wimpy, Orphan Annie, Charlie Brown and Hapless Hooligan—all trapped within the burning north tower of the Trade Center. Rather than assume the identities of any of these characters, Spiegelman chooses, in his final self-representation—just as in his first—to draw himself as maus. And, for the first time in No Towers, his son, daughter and wife are also depicted as mäuse. On page six, commenting on the homeless woman hurling abuse at him, Spiegelman reflected that ‘her inner demons had broken loose and taken over our shared reality’. Here, in the last panels of No Towers, it is Spiegelman’s own demons which have broken loose, drawing his family into his Holocaust nightmare. Depicting himself frantically attempting to push his way out of the tower, he echoes the last image of his grandfather, in Maus I. Trapped, and awaiting imminent deportation to Auschwitz, his grandfather presses against the panes of a second-floor window. As we learn from Spiegelman’s father, ‘On Wednesday the vans came . . . He was tearing his hair and crying . . . He was a millionaire, but even this didn’t save him his life.’

As No Towers draws to a close, Spiegelman succumbs to the shades of the past. For those seeking some exportable catharsis, this conclusion will be unsatisfactory. Neither tribute nor commemoration, this dense, intensely personal work will not live up to expectations of universality. However, for those willing to wrestle seriously with the work’s complexities, there is a rare satisfaction in watching Spiegelman spar with his private torments. As he tangles with the images of his own artistic past, and the classic images of his chosen art form, we get the distinct sense that we are witnessing a comics heavyweight returned to the height of his powers.

an introduction to mcdonaldizationby George Ritzer

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Ray Kroc (1902-1984), the genius behind the franchising of McDonald’s restaurants, was a man with big ideas and grand ambitions. But even Kroc could not have anticipated the astounding impact of his creation. McDonald’s is the basis of one of the most influential developments in contemporary society. Its reverberations extend far beyond its point of origin in the United States and in the fast-food business. It has influenced a wide range of undertakings, indeed the way of life, of a significant portion of the world. And having rebounded from some well-publicized economic difficulties, that impact is likely to expand at an accelerating rate in the early 21st century.

However, this is not a book about McDonald’s, or even about the fast-food business, although both will be discussed frequently throughout these pages. I devote all this attention to McDonald’s (as well as to the industry of which it is a part and that it played such a key role in spawning) because it serves here as the major example of, and the paradigm for, a wide-ranging process I call McDonaldization—that is,

The process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world.

McDonaldization has shown every sign of being an inexorable process, sweeping through seemingly impervious institutions (e.g., religion) and regions (European nations such as France) of the world.

The success of McDonald’s itself is apparent: In 2006, its revenues were $21.6 billion, with operating income of $4.4 billion. McDonald’s, which first began operations in 1955, had 31,667 restaurants throughout the world at the beginning of 2007. Martin Plimmer, a British commentator, archly notes:

There are McDonald’s everywhere. There’s one near you, and there’s one being built right now even nearer to you. Soon, if McDonald’s goes on expanding at its present rate, there might even be one in your house. You could find Ronald McDonald’s boots under your bed. And maybe his red wig, too.


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McDonald’s and McDonaldization have had their most obvious influence on the restaurant industry and, more generally, on franchises of all types:

According to the International Franchise Association, there were 767,483 small franchised businesses in the United States in late 2006, and they did about $1.5 trillion in annual sales. They employed more that 18 million people. Franchises are growing rapidly; over 57% of McDonald’s restaurants are franchises. McDonald’s invested in a Denver chain, Chipotle, in 1998 and became its biggest investor in 2001. At the time, Chipotle had 15 stores. By the time McDonald’s divested itself of its interest in the company on October 13, 2006, there were over 500 Chipotle restaurants. (Starbucks, the current star of the fast-food industry, interestingly refuses to franchise its operations.)

In the restaurant industry, the McDonald’s model has been adopted not only by other budget-minded hamburger franchises, such as Burger King and Wendy’s, but also by a wide array of other low-priced fast-food businesses. As of the beginning of 2007, Yum! Brands, Inc. operated 34,277 restaurants in over 100 countries under the Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, A&W Root Beer, and Long John Silver’s franchises. Yum! Brands has more outlets than McDonald’s, although its total sales ($9.5 billion in 2006) is not nearly as high. Subway (with over 27,000 outlets in 85 countries) is one of the fastest-growing fast-food businesses and claims to be—and may actually be—the largest restaurant chain in the United States. The Cleveland, Ohio, market, to take one example, is so saturated with Subway restaurants (over 100 of them) that one opened recently inside the Jewish Community Center.

The McDonald’s model has been extended to casual dining—that is, more upscale, higher-priced chain restaurants with fuller menus (for example, Outback Steakhouse, Chili’s, Olive Garden, Cheesecake Factory, and Red Lobster). Morton’s is an even more upscale, high-priced chain of steakhouses that has overtly modeled itself after McDonald’s: “Despite the fawning service and the huge wine list, a meal at Morton’s conforms to the same dictates of uniformity, cost control and portion regulation that have enabled American fast-food chains to rule the world.” In fact, the chief executive of Morton’s was an owner of a number of Wendy’s outlets and admits: “My experience with Wendy’s has helped in Morton’s venues.” To achieve uniformity, employees go “by the book”: an ingredient-by-ingredient illustrated binder describing the exact specification of 500 Morton’s kitchen items, sauces and garnishes. A row of color pictures in every Morton’s kitchen displays the presentation for each dish.”

Other types of business are increasingly adapting the principles of the fast-food industry to their needs. Said the vice chairman of Toys “R” Us, “We want to be thought of as a sort of McDonald’s of toys.” (Interestingly, Toys “R” Us is now in decline because of its inability to compete with the even more McDonaldized Wal-Mart and its toy business.) The founder of Kidsports Fun and Fitness Club echoed this desire: “I want to be the McDonald’s of the kids’ fun and fitness business.” Other chains with similar ambitions include Gap, Jiffy

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An Introduction to McDonaldizaion

Lube, AAMCO Transmissions, Midas Muffler & Brake Shops, Great Clips, H&R Block, Pearle Vision, Bally’s, Kampgrounds of America (KOA), KinderCare (dubbed “Kentucky Fried Children), Jenny Craig, Home Depot, Barnes & Noble, and PETsMART. Curves, the world’s largest chain of women’s fitness centers, was founded in 1995, and by 2007 there were an astounding 10,000 of them in 44 countries.

As we will see throughout this book, it is possible to view a wide range of the most contemporary phenomena as being affected directly or indirectly by the McDonald’s model (and McDonaldization). Among them are text messaging, multitasking, mobile cell phone use and entertainment (e.g., Mobizzo), iPods, MySpace, YouTube, online dating (e.g., match.com), Viagra, virtual vacations, and extreme sports.

McDonald’s has been a resounding success in the international arena. Over half of McDonald’s restaurants are outside the United States (in the mid-1980s, only 25% of McDonald’s were outside the United States). The majority (233) of the 280 new restaurants opened in 2006 were overseas (in the United States, the number of restaurants increased by only 47). Well over half of the revenue for McDonald’s comes from its overseas operations. McDonald’s restaurants are now found in 118 nations around the world, serving 50 million customers a day. The leader by far, as of the beginning of 2007, is Japan with 3,828 restaurants, followed by Canada with over 1,375 and Germany with over 1,200. There are currently 780 McDonald’s restaurants in China (but Yum! Brands operates over 2,000 KFCs—the Chinese greatly prefer chicken to beef—and 300 Pizza Huts in China). McDonald’s has added 100 new restaurants a year in China and had a goal of 1,000 restaurants by the opening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics (but KFC added 400 a year!). As of 2006, there were 155 McDonald’s in Russia, and the company plans to open many more restaurants in the former Soviet Union and in the vast new territory in Eastern Europe that has been laid bare to the invasion of fast-food restaurants. Although there have been recent setbacks for McDonald’s in Great Britain, that nation remains the “fast-food capital of Europe,” and Israel is described as “McDonaldized,” with its shopping malls populated by “Ace Hardware, Toys “R” Us, Office Depot, and TCBY.”

Many highly McDonaldized firms outside the fast-food industry have also had success globally. Although most of Blockbuster’s 9,000-plus sites are in the United States, about 2,000 of them are found in 24 other countries. Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer with 1.8 million employees and over $312 billion in sales. There are almost 4,000 of its stores in the United States (as of 2006). It opened its first international store (in Mexico) in 1991; it now has more than 2,700 units in Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Brazil, China, Korea, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom. In any given week, more than 175 million customers visit Wal-Mart stores world wide.


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Other nations have developed their own variants on the McDonald’s chain. Canada has a chain of coffee shops called Tim Hortons (merged with Wendy’s in 1995), with 2,711 outlets (336 in the United States). It is Canada’s largest food service provider with nearly twice as many outlets as McDonald’s in that country. The chain has 62% of the coffee business (Starbucks is a distant second with just 7% of that business). Paris, a city whose love for fine cuisine might lead you to think it would prove immune to fast-food, has a large number of fast-food croissanteries; the revered French bread has also been McDonaldized. India has a chain of fast-food restaurants, Nirula’s, that sells mutton burgers (about 80% of Indians are Hindus, who eat no beef ) as well as local Indian cuisine. Mos Burger is a Japanese chain with over 1,600 restaurants that, in addition to the usual fare, sell Teriyaki chicken burgers, rice burgers, and “Oshiruko with brown rice cake.” Perhaps the most unlikely spot for an indigenous fast-food restaurant, war-ravaged Beirut of 1984, witnessed the opening of Juicy Burger, with a rainbow instead of golden arches and J. B. the Clown standing in for Ronald McDonald. Its owners hoped it would become the “McDonald’s of the Arab world.” In the immediate wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, clones of McDonald’s (sporting names like “MaDonal” and “Matbax”) opened in that country complete with hamburgers, french fries, and even golden arches.

And now McDonaldization is coming full circle. Other countries with their own McDonaldized institutions have begun to export them to the United States. The Body Shop, an ecologically sensitive British cosmetics chain, had, as of 2006, over 2,100 shops in 55 nations, 300 of them in the United States. American firms have followed the lead and opened copies of this British chain, such as Bath & Body Works. Pret A Manger, a chain of sandwich shops that also originated in Great Britain (interestingly, McDonald’s purchased a 33% minority share of the company in 2001), has over 150 company-owned and -run restaurants, mostly in the Untied Kingdom but now also in New York, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. Polo Campero was founded in Guatemala in 1971 and by mid-2006 had more than 200 restaurants in Latin America and the United States. In the latter, 23 restaurants were in several major cities, and the company planned to open 10 more in such cities by the end of 2006. ( Jollibee, a Philippine chain, has 10 U.S. outlets.) Though Pollo Campero is a smaller presence in the United States than the American-owned Pollo Tropical chain (which has 80 U.S. outlets), Pollo Campero is more significant because it involves the invasion of the United States, the home of fast-food, by a foreign chain.

IKEA (more on this important chain later), a Swedish-based (but Dutch-owned) home furnishings company, did about 17.6 billion euros of business in 2006, derived from the over 410 million people visiting their 251 stores in 34 countries. Purchases were also made from the 160 million copies of their catalog printed in over 44 languages. In fact, that catalog is reputed to print annually the second largest number of copies in the world, just after the Bible. IKEA’s Web site features over 12,000 products and reported over 125 million “hits” in 2006. Another international chain to watch in the coming years is H&M clothing, founded in 1947 and now operating 1,345 stores in 24 countries with plans to open another 170 stores by the

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end of 2007. It currently employs over 60,000 people and sells more than 500 million items a year. Based in Spain, Inditex Group, whose flagship store is Zara, overtook H&M in March 2006 to become Europe’s largest fashion retailer with more than 3,100 stores in 64 countries.

Much of the above emphasizes the spatial expansion of McDonald’s and other McDonaldized businesses, but in addition they have all expanded temporally. McDonald’s is shifting its focus from adding locations to adding hours to existing locales, therefore squeezing greater profits from each of them. For example, McDonald’s did not at first offer breakfast, but now that meal has become the most important part of the day, and McDonald’s dominates the fast-food breakfast market (although Starbucks is seeking to challenge its preeminence). There is also a trend toward remaining open on a 24/7 basis. While less than 1% of McDonald’s restaurants operated nonstop in 2002, almost 40% were operating that way by late 2006. Time, like space, is no barrier to the spread of McDonald’s and McDonaldization.

McDonald’s as a Global Icon

McDonald’s has come to occupy a central place in American popular culture, not just the business world. The opening of a new McDonald’s in a small town can be an important social event. Said one Maryland high school student at such an opening, “Nothing this exciting ever happens in Dale City.” Even big-city and national newspapers avidly cover developments in the fast-food business.

Fast-food restaurants also play symbolic roles on television programs and in the movies. A skit on the legendary television show Saturday Night Live satirized specialty chains by detailing the hardships of a franchise that sells nothing but Scotch tape. In the movie Coming to America (1988), Eddie Murphy plays an African prince whose introduction to America includes a job at “McDowell’s,” a thinly disguised McDonald’s. In Falling Down (1993), Michael Douglas vents his rage against the modern world in a fast-food restaurant dominated by mindless rules designed to frustrate customers. Moscow on the Hudson (1984) has Robin Williams, newly arrived from Russia, obtain a job at McDonald’s. H. G. Wells, a central character in the movie Time After Time (1979), finds himself transported to the modern world of a McDonald’s, where he tries to order the tea he was accustomed to drinking in Victorian England. In Sleeper (1973), Woody Allen awakens in the future only to encounter a McDonald’s. Tin Men (1987) ends with the early 1960s heroes driving off into a future represented by a huge golden arch looming in the distance. Scotland, PA (2001) brings Macbeth to the Pennsylvania of the 1970s. The famous murder scene from the Shakespeare play involves, in this case, plunging a doughnut king’s head into the boiling oil of a deep fat fryer. The McBeths then use their ill-gotten gains to transform the king’s greasy spoon café into a fast-food restaurant featuring McBeth burgers. The focus of the movie Fast Food Nation (2006) is a fictional fast-food chain (“Mickey’s”), featuring its hit hamburger (“The


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Big One”, the beef processor that supplies the meat, and the plight of the illegal Mexican immigrants who work there.

Further proof that McDonald’s has become a symbol of American culture is to be found in what happened when plans were made to raze Ray Kroc’s first McDonald’s restaurant. Hundreds of letters poured into McDonald’s headquarters, including the following:

Please don’t tear it down! . . . Your company’s name is a household word, not only in the United States of America, but all over the world. To destroy this major artifact of contemporary culture would, indeed, destroy part of the faith the people of the world have in your company.

In the end, the restaurant was rebuilt according to the original blueprints and turned into a museum. A McDonald’s executive explained the move: “McDonald’s . . . is really a part of Americana.”

Americans aren’t the only ones who feel this way. At the opening of the McDonald’s in Moscow, one journalist described the franchise as the “ultimate icon of Americana.” When Pizza Hut opened in Moscow in 1990, a Russian student said, “It’s a piece of America.” Reflecting on the growth of fast-food restaurants in Brazil, an executive associated with Pizza Hut of Brazil said that his nation “is experiencing a passion for things American.” On the popularity of Kentucky Fried Chicken in Malaysia, the local owner said, “Anything Western, especially American, people here love . . . They want to be associated with America.”

One could go further and argue that in at least some ways McDonald’s has become more important than the United States itself. Take the following story about a former U.S. ambassador to Israel officiating at the opening of the first McDonald’s in Jerusalem wearing a baseball hat with the McDonald’s golden arches logo:

An Israeli teen-ager walked up to him, carrying his own McDonald’s hat, which he handed to Ambassador Indyk with a pen and asked: “Are you the Ambassador? Can I have your autograph?” Somewhat sheepishly, Ambassador Indyk replied: “Sure. I’ve never been asked for my autograph before.”

As the Ambassador prepared to sign his name, the Israeli teen-ager said to him, “Wow, what’s it like to be the ambassador from McDonald’s, going around the world opening McDonald’s restaurants everywhere?”

Ambassador Indyk looked at the Israeli youth and said, “No, no. I’m the American ambassador—not the ambassador from McDonald’s!” Ambassador Indyk described what happened next: “I said to him, ‘Does this mean you don’t want my autograph?’ And the kid said, ‘No, I don’t want your autograph,’ and he took his hat back and walked away.”

Two other indices of the significance of McDonald’s (and, implicitly, McDonaldization) are worth mentioning. The first is the annual “Big Mac Index” (part of “burgernomics”),

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published, tongue-in-cheek, by a prestigious magazine, the Economist. It indicates the purchasing power of various currencies around the world based on the local price (in dollars) of the Big Mac. The Big Mac is used because it is a uniform commodity sold in many different nations. In the 2007 survey, a Big Mac in the United States cost an average of $3.22; in China it was $1.41; in Switzerland it cost $5.50; the costliest was $7.44 in Iceland. This measure indicates, at least roughly, where the cost of living is high or low, as well as which currencies are under-valued (China) and which are overvalued (Switzerland). Although the Economist is calculating the Big Mac Index only half-seriously, the index represents the ubiquity and importance of McDonald’s around the world.

To many people throughout the world, McDonald’s has become a sacred institution. At that opening of the McDonald’s in Moscow, a worker spoke of it “as if it were the Cathedral in Chartres, . . . a place to experience ‘celestial joy.’” Kowinski argues that indoor shopping malls, which almost always encompass fast-food restaurants, are the modern “cathedrals of consumption” to which people go to practice their “consumer religion.” Similarly, a visit to another central element of McDonaldized society, Walt Disney World, has been described as “the middle-class hajj, the compulsory visit to the sunbaked holy city.”

McDonald’s has achieved its exalted position because virtually all Americans, and many others, have passed through its golden arches (or by its drive-through windows) on innumerable occasions. Furthermore, most of us have been bombarded by commercials extolling the virtues of McDonald’s, commercials tailored to a variety of audiences and that change as the chain introduces new foods, new contests, and new product tie-ins. These ever-present commercials, combined with the fact that people cannot drive very far without having a McDonald’s pop into view, have embedded McDonald’s deeply in popular consciousness. A poll of school-age children showed that 96% of them could identify Ronald McDonald, second only to Santa Claus in name recognition.

Over the years, McDonald’s has appealed to people in many ways. The restaurants themselves are depicted as spick-and-span, the food is said to be fresh and nutritious, the employees are shown to be young and eager, the managers appear gentle and caring, and the dining experience itself seems fun-filled. Through their purchases, people contribute, at least indirectly, to charities such as the Ronald McDonald Houses for sick children.

The�Long�Arm�of�McDonaldization

McDonald’s strives continually to extend its reach within American society and beyond. As the company’s chairman said, “Our goal: to totally dominate the quick service restaurant industry worldwide . . . I want McDonald’s to be more than a leader. I want McDonald’s to dominate.”


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McDonald’s began as a phenomenon of suburbs and medium-sized towns, but later it moved into smaller towns that supposedly could not support such a restaurant and into many big cities that were supposedly too sophisticated. Today, you can find fast-food outlets in New York’s Times Square as well as on the Champs-Elysées in Paris. Soon after it opened in 1992, the McDonald’s in Moscow’s Pushkin Square sold almost 30,000 hamburgers a day and employed a staff of 1,200 young people working two to a cash register. In early 1992, Beijing witnessed the opening of what still may be the world’s largest McDonald’s, with 700 seats, 29 cash registers, and nearly 1,000 employees. On its first day of business, it set a new one-day record for McDonald’s by serving about 40,000 customers. McDonald’s can even be found on Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and in the Pentagon.

Small, satellite, express, or remote outlets, opened in areas that could not support full-scale fast-food restaurants, are also expanding rapidly. They are found in small storefronts in large cities and in nontraditional settings such as museums, department stores, service stations, and even schools. These satellites typically offer only limited menus and may rely on larger outlets for food storage and preparation. A flap occurred over the placement of a McDonald’s in the new federal courthouse in Boston. Among the more striking sites for a McDonald’s restaurant are at the Grand Canyon, in the world’s tallest building (Petronas Towers in Malaysia), as a ski-through on a slope in Sweden, and in a structure in Shrewsbury, England, that dates back to the 13th century.

No longer content to dominate the strips that surround many college campuses, fast-food restaurants have moved right onto many of those campuses. The first campus fast-food restaurant opened at the University of Cincinnati in 1973. Today, college cafeterias often look like shopping-mall food courts (and it’s no wonder, given that campus food service is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year business). In conjunction with a variety of “branded partners” (for example, Pizza Hut and Subway), Marriott now supplies food to many colleges and universities. The apparent approval of college administrations puts fast-food restaurants in a position to further influence the younger generation.

We no longer need to leave many highways to obtain fast-food quickly and easily. Fastfood is now available at many, and in some cases all, convenient rest stops along the road. After “refueling,” we can proceed with our trip, which is likely to end in another community with about the same density and mix of fast-food restaurants as the locale we left behind. Fast-food is also increasingly available in hotels, railway stations, and airports.

In other sectors of society, the influence of fast-food restaurants has been subtler but no less profound. Food produced by McDonald’s and other fast-food restaurants has begun to appear in high schools and trade schools; over 50% of school cafeterias offer popular brand-name fast-food such as McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, or Taco Bell at least once a week. Said the director of nutrition for the American School Food Service Association, “Kids today live in a world where fast-food has become a way of life. For us to get kids to eat, period, we

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have to provide some familiar items.” Few lower-grade schools as yet have in-house fast-food restaurants; however, many have had to alter school cafeteria menus and procedures to make fast-food readily available. Apples, yogurt, and milk may go straight into the trash can, but hamburgers, fries, and shakes are devoured. Fast-food restaurants also tend to cluster within walking distances of schools. The attempt to hook school-age children on fast-food reached something of a peak in Illinois, where McDonald’s operated a program called “A for Cheeseburger.” Students who received As on their report cards received a free cheeseburger, thereby linking success in school with McDonald’s. In Australia, toy versions of food featured by McDonald’s are being marketed to children as young as three. The toys include “fake McDonald’s fries, a self-assembling Big Mac, milkshake, Chicken McNuggets, baked apple pie and mini cookies.” Many fear that playing with such toy food will increase children’s interest in eating the real thing.

The military has also been pressed to offer fast-food on both bases and ships. Despite criticism by physicians and nutritionists, fast-food outlets have turned up inside over 30 U.S. general hospitals and in about 30% of children’s hospitals. Although no private homes yet have a McDonald’s of their own, meals at home often resemble those available in fast-food restaurants. Frozen, microwavable, and prepared foods, which bear a striking resemblance to meals available at fast-food restaurants, often find their way to the dinner table. There are even cookbooks—for example, Secret Fast Food Recipes: The Fast Food Cookbook—that allow one to prepare “genuine” fast food at home. Then there is also home delivery of fast foods, especially pizza, as revolutionized by Domino’s.

Another type of expansion involves what could be termed “vertical McDonaldization”; that is, the demands of the fast-food industry, as is well documented in Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, have forced industries that service it to McDonaldize in order to satisfy its insatiable demands. Potato growing and processing, cattle ranching, chicken raising, and meat slaughtering and processing have all had to McDonaldize their operations, leading to dramatic increases in production. That growth has not come without costs, however. Meat and poultry are more likely to be disease-ridden, small (often non-McDonaldized) producers and ranchers have been driven out of business, and millions of people have been forced to work in low-paying, demeaning, demanding, and sometimes outright dangerous jobs. For example, in the meatpacking industry, relatively safe, unionized, secure, manageable, and relatively high-paying jobs in firms with once-household names like Swift and Armour have been replaced with unsafe, nonunionized, insecure, corporations. While some (largely owners, managers, and stock holders) have profited enormously from vertical McDonaldization, far more have been forced into a marginal economic existence.

McDonald’s is such a powerful model that many businesses have acquired nicknames beginning with Mc. Examples include “McDentists” and “McDoctors,” meaning drive-in clinics designed to deal quickly and efficiently with minor dental and medical problems; “McChild” care centers, meaning child-care centers such as KinderCare; “McStables,”


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designating the nationwide race horse-training operation of Wayne Lucas; and “McPaper,” describing the newspaper USA TODAY.

McDonald’s is not always enamored of this proliferation. Take the case of We Be Sushi, a San Francisco chain with a half-dozen outlets. A note appears on the back of the menu explaining why the chain was not named “McSushi”:

The original name was McSushi. Our sign was up and we were ready to go. But before we could open the doors we received a very formal letter from the lawyers of, you guessed it, McDonald’s. It seems that McDonald’s has cornered the market on every McFood name possible from McBagle [sic] to McTaco. They explained that the use of the name McSushi would dilute the image of McDonald’s.

So powerful is McDonaldization that the derivatives of McDonald’s, in turn, exert their own powerful influence. For example, the success of USA TODAY has led many newspapers across the nation to adopt shorter stories and colorful weather maps. As one USA TODAY editor said, “The same newspaper editors who call us McPaper have been stealing our McNuggets.” Even serious journalistic enterprises such as The New York Times and The Washington Post have undergone changes (for example, the use of color) as a result of the success of USA TODAY. The influence of USA TODAY is blatantly manifested in the Boca Raton News, which has been described as “a sort of smorgasbord of snippets, a newspaper that slices and dices the news into even smaller portions than does USA TODAY, spicing it with color graphics and fun facts and cute features like ‘Today’s Hero’ and ‘Critter Watch.’” As in USA TODAY, stories in the Boca Raton News usually start and finish on the same page. Many important details, much of a story’s context, and much of what the principals have to say are cut back severely or omitted entirely. With its emphasis on light news and color graphics, the main function of the newspaper seems to be entertainment.

Curves is a derivative of McDonald’s in the women’s fitness area. Its phenomenal growth led to Cuts Fitness for Men, which began operation in 2003. Its founder said, “I wanted to be the men’s version of Curves, loud and clear.” By 2006 there were over 100 Cuts franchises, with 200 more sold. The franchise has become international, and the first Cuts for women opened in late 2005.

Like virtually every other sector of society, sex has undergone McDonaldization. In the movie Sleeper, Woody Allen not only created a futuristic world in which McDonald’s was an important and highly visible element, but he also envisioned a society in which people could enter a machine called an “orgasmatron” to experience an orgasm without going through the muss and fuss of sexual intercourse.

Similarly, real-life “dial-a-porn” allows people to have intimate, sexually explicit, even obscene conversations with people they have never met and probably never will meet. There is great

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specialization here: Dialing numbers such as 555-FOXX will lead to a very different phone message than dialing 555-SEXY. Those who answer the phones mindlessly and repetitively follow “scripts” such as, “Sorry, tiger, but your Dream Girl has to go . . . Call right back and ask for me.” Less scripted are phone sex systems (or Internet chat rooms) that permit erotic conversations between total strangers. The Internet, the webcam, and various Web sites (e.g., audreylive.com, Jen ‘n Dave) now permit people even to see (though still not touch) the person with whom they are having virtual sex. As Woody Allen anticipated with his orgasmatron, “Participants can experience orgasm without ever meeting or touching one another.”

In a world where convenience is king, disembodied sex has its allure. You don’t have to stir from your comfortable home. You pick up the phone, or log onto the computer and, if you’re plugged in, a world of unheard of sexual splendor rolls out before your eyes.

In New York City, an official called a three-story pornographic center “the McDonald’s of sex” because of its “cookie-cutter cleanliness and compliance with the law.” These examples suggest that no aspect of people’s lives is immune to McDonaldization.

Various pharmaceuticals can be seen as McDonaldizing sex. Viagra (and similar drugs such as Cialis) do this by, for example, making the ability to have sex more predictable. Such drugs also claim to work fast and to last for a long time. MDMA (ecstasy) breaks down social inhibitions for perhaps four hours and tends to increase social (including sexual) connectedness.

The preceding merely represents the tip of the iceberg as far as the long arm of McDonaldization is concerned. A number of scholars have analyzed the McDonaldization of the following:

� Mountain climbing (e.g., reliance on guidebooks to climbing routes)

� Criminal justice system (police profiling, “three strikes and you’re out”)

� Family (quick fixes to family problems in books, TV shows)

� Drug addiction (a simple linear view of the problem and solution)

� Internet (Web browsers homogenizing use and experience)

� Farming (reliance on chemicals and biotechnology)

� Education (standardized curricula, lesson plans)

� Religion (megachurches and their “franchises”)

� Politics (“drive-through democracy”)


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The Dimensions of McDonaldization

Why has the McDonald’s model proven so irresistible? Eating fast food at McDonald’s has certainly become a “sign” that, among other things, one is in tune with the contemporary lifestyle. There is also a kind of magic or enchantment associated with such food and its settings. The focus here, however, is on the four alluring dimensions that lie at the heart of the success of this model and, more generally, of McDonaldization. In short, McDonald’s has succeeded because it offers consumers, workers, and managers efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. . . .

Efficiency

One important element of the success of McDonald’s is efficiency, or the optimum method for getting from one point to another. For consumers, McDonald’s (its drive-through is a good example) offers the best available way to get from being hungry to being full. The fast-food model offers, or at least appears to offer, an efficient method for satisfying many other needs, as well. Woody Allen’s orgasmatron offered an efficient method for getting people from quiescence to sexual gratification. Other institutions fashioned on the McDonald’s model offer similar efficiency in exercising, losing weight, lubricating cars, getting new glasses or contacts, or completing income tax forms. Like their customers, workers in McDonaldized systems function efficiently by following the steps in a pre-designed process.

Calculability

Calculability emphasizes the quantitative aspects of products sold (portion size, cost) and services offered (the time it takes to get the product). In McDonaldized systems, quantity has become equivalent to quality; a lot of something, or the quick delivery of it, means it must be good. As two observers of contemporary American culture put it, “As a culture, we tend to believe deeply that in general ‘bigger is better.’” People can quantify things and feel that they are getting a lot of food for what appears to be a nominal sum of money (best exemplified by McDonald’s current “Dollar Menu,” which played a key role in recent years in leading McDonald’s out of its doldrums and to steadily increasing sales). In a recent Denny’s ad, a man says, “I’m going to eat too much, but I’m never going to pay too much.” This calculation does not take into account an important point, however: The high profit margin of fast-food chains indicates that the owners, not the consumers, get the best deal.

People also calculate how much time it will take to drive to McDonald’s, be served the food, eat it, and return home; they then compare that interval to the time required to prepare food at home. They often conclude, rightly or wrongly, that a trip to the fast-food restaurant

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will take less time than eating at home. This sort of calculation particularly supports home delivery franchises such as Domino’s, as well as other chains that emphasize saving time. A notable example of time savings in another sort of chain is LensCrafters, which promises people “Glasses fast, glasses in one hour.” H&M is known for its “fast fashion.”

Some McDonaldized institutions combine the emphases on time and money. Domino’s promises pizza delivery in half an hour, or the pizza is free. Pizza Hut will serve a personal pan pizza in 5 minutes, or it, too, will be free.

Workers in McDonaldized systems also emphasize the quantitative rather than the qualitative aspects of their work. Since the quality of the work is allowed to vary little, workers focus on things such as how quickly tasks can be accomplished. In a situation analogous to that of the customer, workers are expected to do a lot of work, very quickly, for low pay.

Predictability

McDonald’s also offers predictability, the assurance that products and services will be the same over time and in all locales. The Egg McMuffin in New York will be, for all intents and purposes, identical to those in Chicago and Los Angeles. Also, those eaten next week or next year will be identical to those eaten today. Customers take great comfort in knowing that McDonald’s offers no surprises. People know that the next Egg McMuffin they eat will not be awful, although it will not be exceptionally delicious, either. The success of the McDonald’s model suggests that many people have come to prefer a world in which there are few surprises. “This is strange,” notes a British observer, “considering [McDonald’s is] the product of a culture which honours individualism above all.”

The workers in McDonaldized systems also behave in predictable ways. They follow corporate rules as well as the dictates of their managers. In many cases, what they do, and even what they say, is highly predictable.

Control

The fourth element in the success of McDonald’s, control, is exerted over the people who enter the world of McDonald’s. Lines, limited menus, few options, and uncomfortable seats all lead diners to do what management wishes them to do—eat quickly and leave. Furthermore, the drive-through (in some cases, walk-through) window invites diners to leave before they eat. In the Domino’s model, customers never enter in the first place.

The people who work in McDonaldized organizations are also controlled to a high degree, usually more blatantly and directly than customers. They are trained to do a limited number


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of things in precisely the way they are told to do them. This control is reinforced by the technologies used and the way the organization is set up to bolster this control. Managers and inspectors make sure that workers toe the line.

A Critique of McDonaldization: The Irrationality of Rationality

McDonaldization offers powerful advantages. In fact, efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control through nonhuman technology (that is, technology that controls people rather than being controlled by them) can be thought of as not only the basic components of a rational system but also as powerful advantages of such a system. However, rational systems inevitably spawn irrationalities. The downside of McDonaldization will be dealt with most systematically under the heading of the irrationality of rationality; in fact, paradoxically, the irrationality of rationality can be thought of as the fifth dimension of McDonaldization.

Criticism, in fact, can be applied to all facets of the McDonaldizing world. As just one example, at the opening of Euro Disney, a French politician said that it will “bombard France with uprooted creations that are to culture what fast food is to gastronomy.” Although McDonaldization offers many advantages (explained later in this chapter), the book focus is on the great costs and enormous risks of McDonaldization. McDonald’s and other purveyors of the fast-food model spend billions of dollars each year detailing the benefits of their system. Critics of the system, however, have few outlets for their ideas. For example, no one sponsors commercials between Saturday-morning cartoons warning children of the dangers associated with fast-food restaurants.

Nonetheless, a legitimate question may be raised about this critique of McDonaldization: Is it animated by a romanticization of the past, an impossible desire to return to a world that no longer exists? Some critics do base their critiques on nostalgia for a time when life was slower and offered more surprises, when at least some people (those who were better off economically) were freer, and when one was more likely to deal with a human being than a robot or a computer. Although they have a point, these critics have undoubtedly exaggerated the positive aspects of a world without McDonald’s, and they have certainly tended to forget the liabilities associated with earlier eras. As an example of the latter, take the following anecdote about a visit to a pizzeria in Havana, Cuba, which in some respects is decades behind the United States:

The pizza’s not much to rave about—they scrimp on tomato sauce, and the dough is mushy.

It was about 7:30 P.M., and as usual the place was standing-room-only, with people two deep jostling for a stool to come open and a waiting line spilling out onto the sidewalk.

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The menu is similarly Spartan . . . To drink, there is tap water. That’s it—no toppings, no soda, no beer, no coffee, no salt, no pepper. And no special orders.

A very few people are eating. Most are waiting. . . . Fingers are drumming, flies are buzzing, the clock is ticking. The waiter wears a watch around his belt loop, but he hardly needs it; time is evidently not his chief concern. After a while, tempers begin to fray.

But right now, it’s 8:45 P.M. at the pizzeria, I’ve been waiting an hour and a quarter for two small pies.

Few would prefer such a restaurant to the fast, friendly, diverse offerings of, say, Pizza Hut. More important, however, critics who revere the past do not seem to realize that we are not returning to such a world. In fact, fast-food restaurants have begun to appear even in Havana (and many more are likely after the death of Fidel Castro). The increase in the number of people crowding the planet, the acceleration of technological change, the increasing pace of life—all this and more make it impossible to go back to the world, if it ever existed, of home-cooked meals, traditional restaurant dinners, high-quality foods, meals loaded with surprises, and restaurants run by chefs free to express their creativity.

It is more valid to critique McDonaldization from the perspective of a conceivable future. Unfettered by the constraints of McDonaldized systems, but using the technological advances made possible by them, people could have the potential to be far more thoughtful, skillful, creative, and well-rounded than they are now. In short, if the world was less McDonaldized, people would be better able to live up to their human potential.

We must look at McDonaldization as both “enabling” and “constraining.” McDonaldized systems enable us to do many things we were not able to do in the past; however, these systems also keep us from doing things we otherwise would do. McDonaldization is a “double-edged” phenomenon. We must not lose sight of that fact, even though this book will focus on the constraints associated with McDonaldization—its “dark side.”

Illustrating the Dimensions of McDonaldization: The Case of IKEA

An interesting example of McDonaldization, especially since it has its roots in Sweden rather than the United States, is IKEA. Its popularity stems from the fact that it offers at very low prices trendy furniture based on well-known Swedish designs. It has a large and devoted clientele throughout the world. What is interesting about IKEA from the point of view of this book is how well it fits the dimensions of McDonaldization. The similarities


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go beyond that, however. For example, just as with the opening of a new McDonald’s there is great anticipation over the opening of the first IKEA in a particular location. Just the rumor that one was to open in Dayton, Ohio, led to the following statement: “We here in Dayton are peeing our collective pants waiting for the IKEA announcement.” IKEA is also a global phenomenon—it is now in 34 countries (including China and Japan) and sells in those countries both its signature products as well as those more adapted to local tastes and interests.

In terms of efficiency, IKEA offers one-stop furniture shopping with an extraordinary range of furniture. In general, there is no waiting for one’s purchases, since a huge warehouse is attached to each store (one often enters through the warehouse), with large numbers of virtually everything in stock.

Much of the efficiency at IKEA stems from the fact that customers are expected to do a lot of the work:

Unlike McDonald’s, there are relatively few IKEAs in any given area; thus, customers most often spend many hours driving great distances to get to a store. This is known as the “IKEA road trip.”

On entry, customers are expected to take a map to guide themselves through the huge and purposely maze-like store (IKEA hopes, like Las Vegas casinos, that customers will get “lost” in the maze and wander for hours, spending money as they go). There are no employees to guide anyone, but there are arrows painted on the floor that customers can follow on their own.

Also upon entry, customers are expected to grab a pencil and an order form and to write down the shelf and bin numbers for the larger items they wish to purchase; a yellow shopping bag is to be picked up on entry for smaller items. There are few employees and little in the way of help available as customers wander through the stores. Customers can switch from a shopping bag to a shopping cart after leaving the showroom and entering the marketplace, where they can pick up other smaller items.

If customers eat in the cafeteria, they are expected to clean their tables after eating. There is even this helpful sign: “Why should I clean my own table? At IKEA, cleaning your own table at the end of your meal is one of the reasons you paid less at the start.”

Most of the furniture sold is unassembled in flat packages, and customers are expected to load most of the items (except the largest) into their cars themselves. After they get home, they must break down (and dispose) of the packaging and then put their furniture together; the only tool supposedly required is an Allen wrench.

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If the furniture does not fit into your car, you can rent a truck on site to transport it home or have it delivered, although the cost tends to be high, especially relative to the price paid for the furniture.

To get a catalog, customers often sign up online.

Calculability is at the heart of IKEA, especially the idea that what is offered is at a very low price. Like a McDonald’s “Dollar Menu,” one can get a lot of furniture—a roomful, even a houseful—at bargain prices. As with value meals, customers feel they are getting value for their money. (There is even a large cafeteria offering low-priced food, including the chain’s signature Swedish meatballs and 99-cent breakfasts.) However, as is always the case in McDonaldized settings, low price generally means that the quality is inferior, and it is often the case that IKEA products fall apart in relatively short order. IKEA also emphasizes the huge size of its stores, which often approach 300,000 square feet or about four to five football fields. This mammoth size leads the consumer to believe that there will be a lot of furniture offered (and there is) and that, given the store’s reputation, most of it will be highly affordable.

Of course, there is great predictability about any given IKEA—large parking lots, a supervised children’s play area (where IKEA provides personnel, but only because supervised children give parents more time and peace of mind to shop and spend), the masses of inexpensive, Swedish-design furniture, exit through the warehouse and the checkout counters, boxes to take home with furniture requiring assembly, and so on.

An IKEA is a highly controlled environment, mainly in the sense that the maze-like structure of the store virtually forces the consumer to traverse the entire place and to see virtually everything it has to offer. If one tries to take a path other than that set by IKEA, one is likely to become lost and disoriented. There seems to be no way out that does not lead to the checkout counter, where you pay for your purchases.

There are a variety of irrationalities associated with the rationality of IKEA, most notably the poor quality of most of its products. Although the furniture is purportedly easy to assemble, many are more likely to think of it as “impossible-to-assemble.” Then there are the often long hours required to get to an IKEA, to wander through it, to drive back home, and then to assemble the purchases.

The Advantages of McDonaldization

This discussion of the fundamental characteristics of McDonaldization makes it clear that, despite irrationalities, McDonald’s (and other McDonaldized systems such as IKEA) has succeeded so phenomenally for good, solid reasons. Many knowledgeable people, such as the


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economic columnist Robert Samuelson, strongly support the McDonald’s business model. Samuelson confesses to “openly worship[ing] McDonald’s,” and he thinks of it as “the greatest restaurant chain in history.” In addition, McDonald’s offers many praiseworthy programs that benefit society, such as its Ronald McDonald Houses, which permit parents to stay with children undergoing treatment for serious medical problems; job-training programs for teenagers; programs to help keep its employees in school; efforts to hire and train the handicapped; the McMasters program, aimed at hiring senior citizens; an enviable record of hiring and promoting minorities; and a social responsibility program with goals of improving the environment and animal welfare.

The process of McDonaldization also moved ahead dramatically undoubtedly because it has led to positive changes. Here are a few specific examples of such changes:

A wider range of goods and services is available to a much larger portion of the population than ever before.

Availability of goods and services depends far less than before on time or geographic location; people can now do things, such as text message, e-mail, arrange dates online, and participate in MySpace, in the middle of the night, activities that were impossible before.

People are able to acquire what they want or need almost instantaneously and get it far more conveniently.

Goods and services are of a far more uniform quality; at least some people even get better-quality goods and services than before McDonaldization.

Far more economical alternatives to high-priced, customized goods and services are widely available; therefore, people can afford things (e.g., virtual vacations via the Internet rather than actual vacations) they could not previously afford.

Fast, efficient goods and services are available to a population that is working longer hours and has fewer hours to spare.

In a rapidly changing, unfamiliar, and seemingly hostile world, the comparatively stable, familiar, and safe environment of a McDonaldized system offers comfort.

Because of quantification, consumers can more easily compare competing products.

Certain products (for example, exercise and diet programs) are safer in a carefully regulated and controlled system.

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People are more likely to be treated similarly, no matter what their race, sex, sexual orientation, or social class.

Organizational and technological innovations are more quickly and easily diffused through networks of identical operators.

The most popular products of one culture are more easily disseminated to others.

What Isn’t McDonaldized?

This chapter should give you a sense of McDonaldization and of the range of phenomena to be discussed throughout this book. In fact, such a wide range of phenomena can be linked to McDonaldization that you may begin to wonder what isn’t McDonaldized. Is McDonaldization the equivalent of modernity? Is everything contemporary McDonaldized?

Although much of the world has been McDonaldized, at least three aspects of contemporary society have largely escaped the process:

Those aspects traceable to an earlier, “premodern” age. A good example is the mom-and-pop grocery store.

New businesses that have sprung up or expanded, at least in part, as a reaction against McDonaldization. For instance, people fed up with McDonaldized motel rooms in Holiday Inns or Motel 6s can stay instead in a bed-and-breakfast, which offers a room in a private home with personalized attention and a homemade breakfast from the proprietor.

Those aspects suggesting a move toward a new, “postmodern” age. For example, in a postmodern society, “modern” high-rise housing projects would make way for smaller, more livable communities.

Thus, although McDonaldization is ubiquitous, there is more to the contemporary world than McDonaldization. It is a very important social process, but it is far from the only process transforming contemporary society.

Furthermore, McDonaldization is not an all-or-nothing process. There are degrees of McDonaldization. Fast-food restaurants, for example, have been heavily McDonaldized, universities moderately McDonaldized, and mom-and-pop grocers only slightly McDonaldized. It is difficult to think of social phenomena that have escaped McDonaldization totally, but some local enterprise in Cuba or Fiji may yet be untouched by this process.


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McDonald’s Troubles: Implications for McDonaldization

McDonald’s has been much in the news in the early 21st century, and most of the time, the news has been bad at (at least for McDonald’s)—bombings (some involve fatalities) and protests at restaurants overseas, lawsuits claiming that its food made people obese and that it mislabeled some food as vegetarian, declining stock prices, and its first ever quarterly loss. McDonald’s has responded by withdrawing from several nations, settling lawsuits, closing restaurants, reducing staff, cutting planned expansions, replacing top officials, and remodeling restaurants.

It is hard to predict whether the current situation is merely a short-term downturn to be followed by renewed expansion or the beginning of the end of McDonald’s (after all, even the Roman Empire, to say nothing of A&P and Woolworth’s, among many others, eventually declined and disappeared). For the sake of discussion, let’s take the worst-case scenario—McDonald’s imminently turning off the griddles in the last of its restaurants.

This would clearly be a disastrous event as far as stockholders, franchisees, employees, and devotees of Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets are concerned, but what of its broader implications for the McDonaldization of society? The hypothetical demise of McDonald’s would spell the end of the model for this process, but it would be of no consequence to the process itself. We might need to find a new model and label—”Starbuckization” suggests itself at the moment because of Starbucks’ great current success and its dramatic expansion around the globe—but whatever we call it, the process itself will not only continue but grow more powerful. Can we really envision an alternative future of increasing inefficiency, unpredictability, incalculability, and less reliance on new technology?

In the restaurant industry, the decline and eventual disappearance of McDonald’s would simply mean greater possibilities for its competitors (Subway, Wendy’s) and open the way for more innovative chains (In-N-Out Burger). However, which fast-food chains dominate would be of little consequence to the process of McDonaldization since all of them are highly McDonaldized and all are based on the model pioneered by McDonald’s. What would be of consequence would be a major revival of old-fashioned non-McDonaldized alternatives like cafes, “greasy spoons,” diners, cafeterias, and the like. However, these are not likely to undergo significant expansion unless some organization finds a way to successfully McDonaldize them. And if they do, it would simply be the McDonaldization of yet another domain.

What is certainly not going to happen is a return to the pre-McDonald’s era dominated by the kinds of alternatives mentioned above. Can we really envision the approximately 13,000 sites currently occupied by McDonald’s restaurants in the United States being filled by a like number of independently owned and operated cafes and diners? The problem of finding skilled short-order cooks to staff them pales in comparison to the difficulty in finding people who will frequent them. It’s been nearly fifty years since the franchise revolutionized the fast-

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food industry with the opening of the first of the McDonald’s chain, The vast majority of Americans have known little other than the McDonaldized world of fast-food, and for those born before 1955, the alternatives are increasingly dim memories. Thus, McDonaldized systems for the delivery of fast-food (e.g., drive-through lanes, home-delivered pizzas), and the McDonaldized food itself (Whoppers, Taco Bell’s watered-down version of the taco), have become the standards for many people. A hamburger made on the grill at a diner or a taco from an authentic taco stand are likely to be judged inferior to the more McDonaldized versions. Furthermore, those who are accustomed to the enormous efficiency of the fast-food restaurant are unlikely to put up with the relative inefficiencies of diners or taco stands. Those who have grown used to great predictability are not likely to be comfortable with food served in wildly different quantities and shapes. The greater human involvement in preparing and serving food in non-McDonaldized alternatives is likely to be off-putting to most consumers who have grown acclimated to the dehumanization associated with the nonhuman technologies and scripted counter people found throughout today’s fast-food industry. The key point is that McDonald’s current difficulties do not auger a return to earlier non-McDonaldized alternatives or even to the widespread creation (if one could even envision such a thing) of some new non-McDonaldized form.

McDonald’s is doing better outside the United States, and it is there that we are likely to see a continued expansion of it, and other American fast-food chains, for the foreseeable future (by all accounts, the American market fast-food restaurants is saturated, and this is a big source of McDonald’s problems). More important, as pointed out earlier, many other nations have witnessed the emergence of their own fast-food chains modeled, naturally, after McDonald’s. Not only are they expanding within their own borders, but they are also increasingly interested in global expansion (Britain’s Pizza Express is expanding into Eastern European countries as San Marzano restaurants), even into the American market. Interesting recent examples include the opening in Manhattan of a number of Pret A Manger (the British chain that, as we have seen, is partly owned by McDonald’s) shops offering higher-quality, pre-wrapped sandwiches, and Polio Capero (from Guatemala) fried-chicken restaurants in Los Angeles and Houston (with plans for big expansion in the United States). In fact, the center of McDonaldization, as was previously the case with many forms of factory production, is increasingly shifting outside the United States. Whether it occurs under the name of Mos Burger ( Japan) or Nirula’s (India), it is still McDonaldization.

If the principles have proven successful and have proliferated so widely, why is McDonald’s in trouble? There are obviously a number of reasons, including many bungled opportunities and initiatives such as efforts to be more attractive to adults, to create new menu items, and to restructure restaurants as well as the chain as a whole. While McDonald’s could have done better, the fact is that in the end it has been undercut by its own success. Many competitors have adopted its principles and entered the niche created by McDonald’s for fast-food. Like many other innovators, McDonald’s now finds itself with many rivals who learned not only


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from McDonald’s successes but also from its failures. (One could say that these competitors are “eating McDonald’s lunch.”) McDonald’s, too, may now be better able to overcome its problems and learn from the hot new companies in the fast-food industry. However, whether or not it does, fast-food restaurants and, more generally, the process of McDonaldization are with us for the foreseeable future.

an excerpt from fast food nationby Eric Schlosser

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The Brand Essence

THE BEST INSIGHT INTO the thinking of fast food marketers comes from their own words. Confidential documents from a recent McDonald’s advertising campaign give a clear sense of how the restaurant chain views its customers. The McDonald’s Corporation was facing a long list of problems. “Sales are decreasing,” one memo noted. “People are telling us Burger King and Wendy’s are doing a better job of giving . . . better food at the best price,” another warned. Consumer research indicated that future sales in some key areas were at risk. “More customers are telling us,” an executive wrote, “that McDonald’s is a big company that just wants to sell . . . sell as much as it can.” An emotional connection to McDonald’s that customers had formed “as toddlers” was now eroding. The new radio and television advertising had to make people feel that McDonald’s still cared about them. It had to link the McDonald’s of today to the one people loved in the past. “The challenge of the campaign,” wrote Ray Bergold, the chain’s top marketing executive, “is to make customers believe that McDonald’s is their ‘Trusted Friend.”’

According to these documents, the marketing alliances with other brands were intended to create positive feelings about McDonald’s, making consumers associate one thing they liked with another. Ads would link the company’s French fries “to the excitement and fanaticism people feel about the NBA.” The feelings of pride inspired by the Olympics would be used in ads to help launch a new hamburger with more meat than the Big Mac. The link with the Walt Disney Company was considered by far the most important, designed to “enhance perceptions of Brand McDonald’s.” A memo sought to explain the underlying psychology behind many visits to McDonald’s: parents took their children to McDonald’s because they “want the kids to love them . . . it makes them feel like a good parent.” Purchasing something from Disney was the “ultimate” way to make kids happy, but it was too expensive to do every day. The advertising needed to capitalize on these feelings, letting parents know that “ONLY MCDONALD’S MAKES IT EASY TO GET A BIT OF DISNEY MAGIC.” The ads aimed at “minivan parents” would carry an unspoken message about taking your children to McDonald’s: “It’s an easy way to feel like a good parent.”


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The fundamental goal of the “My McDonald’s” campaign that stemmed from these proposals was to make a customer feel that McDonald’s “cares about me” and “knows about me.” A corporate memo introducing the campaign explained: “The essence McDonald’s is embracing is ‘Trusted Friend’ . . . ‘Trusted Friend’ captures all the goodwill and the unique emotional connection customers have with the McDonald’s experience . . . [Our goal is to make] customers believe McDonald’s is their ‘Trusted Friend.’ Note: this should be done without using the words ‘Trusted Friend’ . . . Every commercial [should be] honest . . . “Every message will be in good taste and feel like it comes from a trusted friend.” The words “trusted friend” were never to be mentioned in the ads because doing so might prematurely “wear out a brand essence” that could prove valuable in the future for use among different national, ethnic, and age groups. Despite McDonald’s faith in its trusted friends, the opening page of this memo said in bold red letters: “ANY UNAUTHORIZED USE OR COPYING OF THIS MATERIAL MAY LEAD TO CIVIL OR CRIMINAL PROSECUTION.”

Mc Teachers and Coke Dudes

NOT SATISFIED WITH MARKETING to children through playgrounds, toys, cartoons, movies, videos, charities, and amusement parks, through contests, sweepstakes, games, and clubs, via television, radio, magazines, and the Internet, fast food chains are now gaining access to the last advertising-free outposts of American life. In 1993 District 11 in Colorado Springs started a nationwide trend, becoming the first public school district in the United States to place ads for Burger King in its hallways and on the sides of its school buses. Like other school systems in Colorado, District 11 faced revenue shortfalls, thanks to growing enrollments and voter hostility to tax increases for education. The initial Burger King and King Sooper ad contracts were a disappointment for the district, gaining it just $37,500 a year – little more than $1 per student. In 1996, school administrators decided to seek negotiating help from a professional, hiring Dan DeRose, president of DD Marketing, Inc., of Pueblo, Colorado. DeRose assembled special advertising packages for corporate sponsors. For $12,000, a company got five school-bus ads, hallway ads in all fifty-two of the district’s schools, ads in their school newspapers, a stadium banner, ads over the stadium’s public-address system during games, and free tickets to high school sporting events.

Within a year, DeRose had nearly tripled District 11’s ad revenues. But his greatest success was still to come. In August of 1997, DeRose broke red a ten-year deal that made Coca-Cola the district’s exclusive beverage supplier, bringing the schools up to $11 million during the life of the contract (minus DD Marketing’s fee). The deal also provided free use of a 1998 Chevy Cavalier to a District 11 high school senior, chosen by lottery, who had good grades and a perfect attendance record.

District 11’s marketing efforts were soon imitated by other school districts in Colorado, by districts in Pueblo, Fort Collins, Denver, and Cherry Creek. Administrators in Colorado Springs did not come up with the idea of using corporate sponsorship to cover shortfalls in

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An Excerpt from Fast Food Nation

a school district’s budget. But they took it to a whole new level, packaging it, systematizing it, leading the way. Hundreds of public school districts across the United States are now adopting or considering similar arrangements. Children spend about seven hours a day, one hundred and fifty days a year, in school. Those hours have in the past been largely free of advertising, promotion, and market research – a source of frustration to many companies. Today the nation’s fast food chains are marketing their products in public schools through conventional ad campaigns, classroom teaching materials, and lunchroom franchises, as well as a number of unorthodox means.

The proponents of advertising in the schools argue that it is necessary to prevent further cutbacks; opponents contend that schoolchildren are becoming a captive audience for marketers, compelled by law to attend school and then forced to look at ads as a means of paying for their own education. America’s schools now loom as a potential gold mine for companies in search of young customers. “Discover your own river of revenue at the schoolhouse gates,” urged a brochure at the 1997 Kids Power Marketing Conference. “Whether it’s first-graders learning to read or teenagers shopping for their first car, we can guarantee an introduction of your product and your company to these students in the traditional setting of the classroom.”

DD Marketing, with offices in Colorado Springs and Pueblo, has emerged as perhaps the nation’s foremost negotiator of ad contracts for schools. Dan DeRose began his career as the founder of the Minor League Football System, serving in the late 1980s as both a team owner and a player. In 1991, he became athletic director at the University of Southern Colorado in Pueblo. During his first year, he raised $250,000 from corporate sponsors for the school’s teams. Before long he was raising millions of dollars to build campus sports facilities. He was good at getting money out of big corporations, and formed DD Marketing to use this skill on behalf of schools and nonprofits. Beverage companies and athletic shoe companies had long supported college sports programs, and during the 1980s began to put up the money for new high school scoreboards. Dan DeRose saw marketing opportunities that were still untapped. After negotiating his first Colorado Springs package deal in 1996, he went to work for the Grapevine-Colleyville School District in Texas. The district would never have sought advertising, its deputy superintendent told the Houston Chronicle, “if it weren’t for the acute need for funds.” DeRose started to solicit ads not only for the district’s hallways, stadiums, and buses, but also for its rooftops – so that passengers flying in or out of the nearby Dallas-Forth Worth airport could see them – and for its voice-mail systems. “You’ve reached Grapevine-Colleyville school district, proud partner of Dr Pepper,” was a message that DeRose proposed. Although some people in the district were skeptical about the wild ideas of this marketer from Colorado, DeRose negotiated a $3.4 million dollar exclusive deal between the Grapevine-Colleyville School District and Dr Pepper in June of 1997. And Dr Pepper ads soon appeared on school rooftops.

Dan DeRose tells reporters that his work brings money to school districts that badly need it. By pitting one beverage company against another in bidding wars for exclusive deals, he’s


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raised the prices being offered to schools. “In Kansas City they were getting 67 cents a kid before,” he told one reporter, “and now they’re getting $27.” The major beverage companies do not like DeRose and prefer not to deal with him. He views their hostility as a mark of success. He doesn’t think that advertising in the schools will corrupt the nation’s children and has little tolerance for critics of the trend. “There are critics to penicillin,” he told the Fresno Bee. In the three years following his groundbreaking contract for School District 11 in Colorado Springs, Dan DeRose negotiated agreements for seventeen universities and sixty public school systems across the United States, everywhere from Greenville, North Carolina, to Newark, New Jersey. His 1997 deal with a school district in Derby, Kansas, included the commitment to open a Pepsi GeneratioNext Resource Center at an elementary school. Thus far, DeRose has been responsible for school and university beverage deals worth more than $200 million. He typically accepts no money up front, then charges schools a commission that takes between 25 and 35 percent of the deal’s total revenues.

The nation’s three major beverage manufacturers are now spending large sums to increase the amount of soda that American children consume. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Cadbury-Schweppes (the maker of Dr Pepper) control 90.3 percent of the U.S, market, but have been hurt by declining sales in Asia. Americans already drink soda at an annual rate of about fifty-six gallons per person – that’s nearly six hundred twelve-ounce cans of soda per person. Coca-Cola has set itself the goal of raising consumption of its products in the United States by at least 25 percent a year. The adult market is stagnant; selling more soda to kids has become one of the easiest ways to meet sales projections. “Influencing elementary school students is very important to soft drink marketers,” an article in the January 1999 issue of Beverage Industry explained, “because children are still establishing their tastes and habits.” Eight-year-olds are considered ideal customers; they have about sixty-five years of purchasing in front of them. “Entering the schools makes perfect sense,” the trade journal concluded.

The fast food chains also benefit enormously when children drink more soda. The chicken nuggets, hamburgers, and other main courses sold at fast food restaurants usually have the lowest profit margins. Soda has by far the highest. “We at McDonald’s are thankful,” a top executive once told the New York Times, “that people like drinks with their sandwiches.” Today McDonald’s sells more Coca-Cola than anyone else in the world. The fast food chains purchase Coca-Cola syrup for about $4.25 a gallon. A medium Coke that sells for $1.29 contains roughly 9 cents worth of syrup. Buying a large Coke for $1.49 instead, as the cute girl behind the counter always suggests, will add another 3 cents worth of syrup – and another 17 cents in pure profit for McDonald’s,

“Liquid Candy,” a 1999 study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, describes who is not benefiting from the beverage industry’s latest marketing efforts: the nation’s children. In 1978, the typical teenage boy in the United States drank about seven ounces of soda every day; today he drinks nearly three times that amount, deriving 9 percent of his daily caloric intake from soft drinks. Soda consumption among teenaged girls has doubled within the same

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period, reaching an average of twelve ounces a day. A significant number of teenage boys are now drinking five or more cans of soda every day. Each can contains the equivalent of about ten teaspoons of sugar. Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Dr Pepper also contain caffeine. These sodas provide empty calories and have replaced far more nutritious beverages in the American diet. Excessive soda consumption in childhood can lead to calcium deficiencies and a greater likelihood of bone fractures. Twenty years ago, teenage boys in the United States drank twice as much milk as soda; now they drink twice as much soda as milk. Soft drink consumption has also become commonplace among American toddlers. About one-fifth of the nation’s one and two-year-olds now drink soda. “In one of the most despicable marketing gambits,” Michael Jacobson, the author of “Liquid Candy” reports, “Pepsi, Dr Pepper and Seven-Up encourage feeding soft drinks to babies by licensing their logos to a major maker of baby bottles, Munchkin Bottling, Inc.” A 1997 study published in the Journal of Dentistry for Children found that many infants were indeed being fed soda in those bottles.

The school marketing efforts of the large soda companies have not gone entirely unopposed. Administrators in San Francisco and Seattle have refused to allow any advertising in their schools. “It’s our responsibility to make it clear that schools are here to serve children, not commercial interests,” declared a member of the San Francisco Board of Education. Individual protests have occurred as well. In March of 1998, 1,200 students at Greenbrier High School in Evans, Georgia, assembled in the school parking lot, many of them wearing red and white clothing, to spell out the word “Coke.” It was Coke in Education Day at the school, and a dozen Coca-Cola executives had come for the occasion. Greenbrier High was hoping for a $500 prize, which had been offered to the local high school that came up with the best marketing plan for Coca-Cola discount cards. As part of the festivities, Coke executives had lectured the students on economics and helped them bake a Coca-Cola cake. A photographer was hoisted above the parking lot by a crane, ready to record the human C-O-K-E for posterity. When the photographer started to take pictures, Mike Cameron – a Greenbrier senior, standing amid the letter C – suddenly revealed a T-shirt that said “Pepsi.” His act of defiance soon received nationwide publicity, as did the fact that he was immediately suspended from school. The principal said Cameron could have been suspended for a week for the prank, but removed him from classes for just a day. “I don’t consider this a prank,” Mike Cameron told the Washington Post. “I like to be an individual. That’s the way I am.”

Most school advertising campaigns are more subtle than Greenbrier High’s Coke in Education Day. The spiraling cost of textbooks has led thousands of American school districts to use corporate-sponsored teaching materials. A 1998 study of these teaching materials by the Consumers Union found that 80 percent were biased, providing students with incomplete or slanted information that favored the sponsor’s products and views. Procter & Gamble’s Decision Earth program taught that clear-cut logging was actually good for the environment; teaching aids distributed by the Exxon Education Foundation said that fossil fuels created few environmental problems and that alternative sources of energy were too expensive; a study


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guide sponsored by the American Coal Foundation dismissed fears of a greenhouse effect, claiming that “the earth could benefit rather than be harmed from increased carbon dioxide.” The Consumers Union found Pizza Hut’s Book It! Program – which awards a free Personal Pan Pizza to children who reach targeted reading levels – to be “highly commercial.” About twenty million elementary school students participated in Book It! during the 1999-2000 school year; Pizza Hut recently expanded the program to include a million preschoolers.

Lifetime Learning Systems is the nation’s largest marketer and producer of corporate-sponsored teaching aids. The group claims that its publications are used by more than 60 million students every year. “Now you can enter the classroom through custom-made learning materials created with your specific marketing objectives in mind,” Lifetime Learning said in one of its pitches to corporate sponsors. “Through these materials, your product or point of view becomes the focus of discussions in the classroom,” it said in another, “. . . the centerpiece in a dynamic process that generates long-term awareness and lasting attitudinal change.” The tax cuts that are hampering America’s schools have proved to be a marketing bonanza for companies like Exxon, Pizza Hut, and McDonald’s. The money that these corporations spend on their “educational” materials is fully tax-deductible.

The fast food chains run ads on Channel One, the commercial television network whose programming is now shown in classrooms, almost every school day, to eight million of the nation’s middle, junior, and high school students – a teen audience fifty times larger than that of MTV. The fast food chains place ads with Star Broadcasting, a Minnesota company that pipes Top 40 radio into school hallways, lounges, and cafeterias. And the chains now promote their food by selling school lunches, accepting a lower profit margin in order to create brand loyalty. At least twenty school districts in the United States have their own Subway franchises; an additional fifteen hundred districts have Subway delivery contracts; and nine operate Subway sandwich carts. Taco Bell products are sold in about forty-five hundred school cafeterias. Pizza Hut, Domino’s, and McDonald’s are now selling food in the nation’s schools. The American School Food Service Association estimates that about 30 percent of the public high schools in the United States offer branded fast food. Elementary schools in Fort Collins, Colorado, now serve food from Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, and Subway on special lunch days. “We try to be more like the fast food places where these kids are hanging out,” a Colorado school administrator told the Denver Post. “We want kids to think school lunch is a cool thing, the cafeteria a cool place, that we’re ‘with it,’ that we’re not institutional . . .”

The new corporate partnerships often put school officials in an awkward position. The Coca-Cola deal that DD Marketing negotiated for Colorado Springs School District 11 was not as lucrative as it first seemed. The contract specified annual sales quotas. School District 11 was obligated to sell at least seventy thousand cases of Coca-Cola products a year, within the first three years of the contract, or it would face reduced payments by Coke. During the 1997-98 school year, the district’s elementary, middle, and high schools sold only twenty-one thousand cases of Coca-Cola products. Cara DeGette, the news editor of the Colorado Springs

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Independent, a weekly newspaper, obtained a memorandum sent to school principals by John Bushey, a District 11 administrator. On September 28, 1998, at the start of the new school year, Bushey warned the principals that beverage sales were falling short of projections and that as a result school revenues might be affected. Allow students to bring Coke products into the classrooms, he suggested; move Coke machines to places where they would be accessible to students all day. “Research shows that vendor purchases are closely linked to availability,” Bushey wrote. “Location, location, location is the key.” If the principals felt uncomfortable allowing kids to drink Coca-Cola during class, he recommended letting them drink the fruit juices, teas, and bottled waters also sold in the Coke machines. At the end of the memo, John Bushey signed his name and then identified himself as “the Coke dude.”

Bushey left Colorado Springs in 2000 and moved to Florida. He is now the principal of the high school in Celebration, a planned community run by The Celebration Company, a subsidiary of Disney.


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Appendices

glossary

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Active�Learner: A student who is engaged in the learning process and contributes to his/her own learning as well as the learning of others.

Argument: Adopting a position in a paper or speech that involves discussion of a subject, topic, or issue (the “what”) and its importance (the “why’). Argument=what + why.

Audience: The readers for whom your written work is produced.

Close�Reading:��To read and reread carefully in order to deepen thinking and develop understanding.

Collaborative�Learning: Learning that involves more than one person; includes a process involving focused and committed work that demonstrates shared learning, goals, and effort.

Concept�Mapping:� A brainstorming technique used to help refine thinking; helps move a writer from a general topic to a refined and focused argument.

Context: Surrounding circumstances and conditions that inform a topic or a reader’s perspective.

Critical�Thinking:� Questioning material. Critical thinking does not mean adopting a negative stance towards something; rather, it means thinking carefully about an issue.

De-centered:� In a classroom setting, de-centered means that the instructor is not at the center of the learning process; instead, the responsibility for instruction is shared among all of the members (instructor and students) of the classroom learning community.

Direct�Collaboration:� Engaging in collaborative learning with other group members, either face-to-face or virtually.

Direct�Quotation: Including material verbatim from the original source in your work. A direct quotation must be cited properly.


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Direct�Statement: A statement or claim that relies on content to convey a message (e.g. The rise in gas prices has bolstered the number of people using public transportation as evident in the increase of bus users by 25% between June 2009 and June 2010.)

Discussion: Dedicated engagement in an issue, topic, or process. Discussion can occur in many different ways—face-to-face, virtually, through writing, etc.—and involves extended treatment and time.

Global�Revisions: To revise. Altering content, claims, evidence, and organization in order to improve a written document.

Guidelines: Established expectations, directions, and deadlines to help structure group work; essential for productive group work.

Image�Analysis: Analyzing visual images as evidence.

Independent�Learning: Learning that is pursued and directed by an individual and not a pair or group of people.

Indirect�Collaboration: Applying skills and practices gained through direct collaboration to independent learning experiences; for example, questioning a claim, considering counter-arguments, seeking out evidence, conducting additional research.

Indirect�References: Statements that use word choice, voice, and perspective to suggest a point or imply a connection (e.g. Busses are more hot and overcrowded since gas prices have increased.)

Intersections: Points of connection.

Involvement: Dedicating oneself to the group learning process and becoming a committed member of a learning community.

Lecture-based�Classroom: A classroom wherein instructor lecture is used to deliver information to students.

Local�Revisions: To edit. Fine-tuning of a document including small editorial changes that impact style and presentation more than overall meaning.

Metacognitively: Thinking about how we think; thinking about thinking.

Paraphrased: Restating published and/or public information in approximately the same number of words as in the original source and citing this material correctly.

Participation: Acting as part of a group in order to complete a task.

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Glossary

Passive�Learning: Relying on a teacher or resource to deliver learning; receiving information rather than contributing to the learning process.

Plagiarism: Representing someone else’s ideas and words as your own. Failing to give credit to the original author.

Problem-based�Learning�Classroom: A learner-centered classroom wherein students direct their learning process by working through content-based problems provided by the instructor.

Recursive: A non-linear process. With regard to writing, this indicates that the writing process is non-linear; instead of moving forward from generating the introduction to the body to the conclusion, the writer loops backwards and revisits procedures used or ideas generated during earlier stages of the writing process.

Response: Part of the discussion process; an answer to a direct question or the completion of a task.

Shared�Learning: Learning that involves more than one person.

Signal�Phrase: A phrase used to announce quoted, paraphrased, or summarized material (e.g. “As stated by the author,” “According to X,” etc.).

Strategies: Techniques, practices, and steps that group members plan to employ in order to carry out established guidelines.

Subject: The topic or issue under study.

Summary: Condensing published and/or public information into a shorter amount of written space. A summary does not reuse the author’s words and cites the material correctly.

Transition: A word, clause, sentence, or phrase used to move a reader from one idea to another or from one stage of an argument or idea to the next.


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web links

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http://www.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/factsheet.html


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http://www.rethinkingschools.org/

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Web Links

http://www.jewishquarterly.org/issuearchive/article2dab.html?articleid=110


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http://www.colostate-pueblo/edu/About/MissionStatement.htm

references

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Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: BBC, 1972. Print.

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Jensen, Derrick. Walking on Water. White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing

Company, 2004. Print.

Kozol, Jonathan. The Shame of the Nation. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2005.

Lopez, Barry. About This Life. New York: Vintage Books, 1998. Print.

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Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York: Perennial, 2002. Print.

Spiegelman, Art. In the Shadow of No Towers. New York: Random House, 2004. Print.

Images:

“The Problem of Perspective”

“Barry Bishop, Mt. Hood, Oregon, 1974”, photograph by Sam Abell. Web. 26 December

2010. <http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0202/abell22.htm>

“Bonobo female sharing food with infants”, photograph by Frans Lanting. Web. 26

December 2010. <http://www.franslanting.com/stock/index.php>

“Untitled, Colorado, 1994”, photograph by Robert Adams. Web. 26 December 2010.

<http://masters-of-photography.com/A/adamsr/adamsr_river46_full.html>

“The Problem of Comprehending Violence”

“Firefighter at Ground Zero,” photograph by Anthony Correia. Web. 29 Nov. 2010.

<http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-20814043/stock-photo-new-york-september-

a-new-york-city-firefighter-carries-a-fire-hose-as-he-works-near-the-area.html>

“Smoke after the Collapse,” photograph by Anthony Correia. Web. 29 Nov. 2010. <http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-25159546/stock-photo-new-york- september-smoke-lingers-in-the-air-and-debris-litters-the-area-after-the-collapse. html>

“World Trade Center, photograph by Ken Tannenbaum. Web. 29 Nov. 2010. <http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-62949358/stock-photo-world-trade-center- september.html>

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References

“The Problem of Corporatization”

“Home Sweet Home”, illustration by C.F. Payne. Time Magazine. 13 June 2005. Web.

26 December 2010. <http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20050613,00/ html>

“McDonalds’ Characters”, illustration by unknown. Web. 26 December 2010.

<http://farm1.static.flickr.com/27/61616518_288b634f6e_o.jpg>

“McDonald’s Happy Meal”, illustration by unknown. Web. 26 December 2010.

<http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2004_08_food_happy_ meal_25_box.gif>

“McDonald’s Mesquite 920 W Mesquite Boulevard (USA),” photograph by Sebastiaan

Kroes. Web. 26 December 2010.

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckroes/98040825/in/photostream/>

“McDonald’s New York 151 West 34Th Street in Herald Square Macy’s (USA)”,

photograph by Sebastiaan Kroes. Web. 26 December 2010.

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckroe/100143027/in/photostream/>

“McDonalds Times Square,” photograph by Sebastiaan Kroes. Web. 26 December 2010.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:McNew_York_Times_Square.JPG>

“McMansion”, photograph by Oto Rajnič . Web. 26 December 2010.

<http://www.oto.sk/dev/reality/src/mcmansion-010030.jpg>


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