This is where we’ll discuss Geoffrey Sirc’s essay “Box-Logic.”
I have to say that I’ve had a kind of complicated relationship with this essay over the years of teaching it. When I first read it back when this book came out (in 2004), I didn’t think much of it, to be honest. But on re-reading it lately, I have to say that I’ve found it more interesting.
In any event, I think it’s fair to say that this is a complicated chapter. After all, Sirc is drawing on avant-guarde art, rap, and other experimental forms to discuss teaching composition. How does this all fit together?
Well, keep in mind that I think that what Sirc is presenting here is a metaphor for an approach to teaching composition– for example, as he says on page 117, what happens when we see “text as box, author as collector” in approaching composition, particularly multimedia composition?
I think I’ll leave it at that for now. There is an interesting wikipedia entry about Joseph Cornell that might help you with this piece a bit. Or it might not.
I have to admit, I was pretty confused and a little turned off with this chapter. There were some really interesting points that he made, but I had a hard time following a lot of it.
I wasn’t a big fan of the weird movement of his text, but I got his point. It was his conscious decision to compose in that way and compose in a less traditional mode, some of the other texts we’ve read have been doing that as well, so it’s obviously something we should be paying attention to. Normally we allow students to do this kind of stuff in poetry, but maybe prose is the option for this aesthetic. I really liked his quote by Peter Elbow on page 113. “life is long, college short; do we teach to life or college?” not an easy question to answer… which do we teach toward? I would like to think that life skills are more important, but I guess they can go hand in hand, right? Students obviously need college skills to make it out there, but life skills are even more important.
I liked his analogy of students as curators of an exhibit on page 116. Students as collectors, gathering materials that are of interest to them. He mentions “composition as craving; teaching students to feel desire and lack” and write because they have a desire to write on something that lacks their unique viewpoint. That’s a very interesting way of framing the conversation. We all want our students to be excited about what they’re writing, but usually they aren’t. Maybe if presented in new ways, we can get them motivated to work, research, and write.
Yeah I liked the collectors thing too, Angie, and I agree.
Collecting all of these materials is what leads to collage/kaleidoscope writing.
I’m going to quote a little bit from my blog response here to give a context to my thinking…
“I think Geoffrey Sirc brings up an interesting point about new literacy when he explains that “the increasing change and increasing alienation that scholars are beginning to recognize as an outgrowth of such instability” – the instability of comp teachers recognizing that technology is changing writing. I was thinking when I read this that, yes, I agree and want to prepare students for the types of writing that they will be doing outside of academia in the future. However, I think it’s important to recognize too that other profs aren’t up with the times yet either. ”
I wrote this on Friday before meeting with a non-English faculty member at EMU. During the meeting, the faculty member mentioned his/her concern about the fact that emphasizing new genres in English college writing curriculum steals from students the opportunity to learn the type of writing that will allow them to be successful in college. I think the concern is legitimate, and something we really need to grapple with carefully as English teachers.
That’s a really good point Andrea. some aren’t and won’t be “on board” and there’s not much we can do about that, but I think this is kind of what we’re doing in 120 and 121 with having students write across multiple genres and examine conventions of each, in hopes that they may be more likely to apply the concepts we teach them in our classes to the writing they do in other classes.
**Rant Alert**
I’ll be the first to say that I think it’s important for composition classes to teach the conventions of “college writing” to students, simply because they need it in order to succeed in college. But when I hear people argue that new forms are taking time away from learning traditional forms, I can’t help but laugh a little. It’s similar to those who argue that teaching specialized literature (e.g. African-American, Hispanic, Women’s Lit etc.) is at the expense of teaching the classics. Personally, I think if you set out to teach a specific book, or a specific genre of writing, you’re kind of missing the point. We’re not here to teach “Huck Finn.” We’re here to give students the opportunity to develop the skills associated with reading any work… Huck Finn is just a vehicle to do it. We’re not here to teach the “college essay.” We’re here to help students develop the cognitive, critical and analytical inquiry skills needed to write any genre. When we talk about the “college essay,” I think we are really talking about the conventions of a particular genre. Dont’ get me wrong… conventions are important. But they are only a part of it. “College writing” is important, but I would argue that focusing on it, and saying it’s more important than new and emerging forms is really just a veiled cry to return to simpler times… when there were four modes of writing and only white European authors mattered (as if a time ever really existed).
This is not to devalue either “college essays” or “classic literature.” To be completely honest, I would consider myself a traditionalist. I love classical lit, classic films and classic art. And, I even enjoy writing “college essays” a lot of the time. I am not particularly drawn to the avant garde like Sirc, but for the purposes of teaching, I would rather foucs on the skills/strategies that are being learned rather than the vehicle or format used to achieve them.
**End Rant**
Well, what first year writing is for is a topic of great debate, even among those of us who teach it and study it. I will say this though: it shouldn’t be merely “service” to the rest of the institution, much in the same way that introduction to biology or introduction to psychology (or whatever else) is not merely “service.”
Sometimes, I think people who don’t teach or study writing think two things about it that I think are simply wrong. First, I think a lot of faculty think that the purpose of first year writing is to simply “correct” the students before they get to the other, “more real” classes. This basically turns first year writing into a sort of academic gas station, the place you stop to fuel up, check the air and tires, etc., before heading into the “real” (and inherently more valuable and important) classes. That’s silly for lots of reasons.
Second, what we know very clearly about writing pedagogy (or at least what the conventional wisdom among scholars is now, I think) is that a) writing is learned in context, which means that you can’t really teach chemistry majors how to be good writers of chemistry reports in a general first year writing class; b) that writing takes a lot longer to learn and practice than one 3 credit class offered at the beginning of a college career; and c) it is recursively learned in that students at a variety of different levels are always relearning the rules for “good writing,” depending on the context and the class.
How many of you in this class have had a sense of “what does this guy want?” in terms of your writing, and thus changed things? That’s normal, right? It’s what every student does in every circumstance.
Anyway, as far as being “up with the times” thing: well, that’s what we’re working on here, right?
I’m happy to stimulate such a passionate discussion! LOL.
Notice though that I wasn’t advocating only teaching “the college essay” but just that we have to consider the implications of removing the expectations of other faculty completely from our work as we pursue the integration of new literacies. I wouldn’t advocate for spending an entire semester on “grammar” (which is what some faculty might want), but teaching our students to meet audience expectations and giving them clues as to what those expectations might be like in academia isn’t a bad idea either.
Actually, after I posted my rant, I thought to myself, “I hope Andrea doesn’t think my rant was against her.” LOL … It was definately not. I was only reacting to what your colleague said. And I don’t even devalue their opinion… it’s legitimate and reasonable that some poeple would feel that way… I just don’t agree with it.
Well, I don’t know about that. I mean, it’s not like the history department lets the rest of the university know what it has decided to include/exclude in its intro class. First year writing is a little different because more people feel like they have a stake in it, I suppose, but that doesn’t mean that they get to tell the folks teaching first year writing what to teach.
As for writing for academia: I think that’s true and possible in first year writing only to an extent, which is why “writing across the curriculum” is such an important movement in writing studies. At EMU for example, every major has a “writing intensive” class where students have to take a writing class specific to and in that major. So in theory, they’re learning about what “academic writing” means in their specific discipline.
Not to devalue what Sirc is doing here… I think the projects he proposes sound fun and students could learn a lot from doing them. But, does anybody else feel like they are sort of glorified collages or scavenger hunts?
I think they are well thought out and very useful, but I guess I just felt like the entire lead up to them, with the box analogy and connection to avant garde art was just a little unneccessary and distracting. Maybe it’s just me. I do like how they are sort of “outside of the box” and bring a certain element of creativity to it, but I guess I just didn’t like the chapter as much as I liked the projects themselves.
You could definitely use the “glorified collage” as a pre-writing technique, that could be a good way for them to incorporate elements of the visual along with their overall writing projects… Just thinking.
Dave! Your “rant” above makes a lot of sense to me, and I think I agree with you for the most part. I was actually talking with one of the Sweetlanders about this very thing today: it doesn’t matter what the theme of your course is, really; it could be 20th century social movements, or the Arab-Israeli conflict, or art and consumerism, or the New York Times. These are all just the content we use to talk about the really important stuff: how to write well in different contexts, for different audiences and purposes.
I would just like to take a moment to defend Sirc’s “glorified-collage.” I think this could be a very illuminating exercise for students, and it could serve the functions you’re promoting: teaching analytical and critical thinking, and broader writing/life skills. Getting students to think relationally can help them understand a range of things beyond the academic essay: poetry (which is hugely associational), for example, or database construction, or complex system or project management. I agree that structure and organization are very important, and I think teaching students these conventions first makes a lot of sense. But then, once students are comfortable working within these conventions, we can give them license to break the rules a bit and see what they can create by organizing carefully-chosen pieces in a way that is most appropriate for their intended purpose and audience — even if this logic defies the conventions to which we often conform so absolutely, and I would venture, sometimes without good reason.
Carrie, I really like the point you make about the content we use to teach being a vehicle for the “important stuff”. I assume you’re talking about first-year writing classes as your assertion might not transfer to other disciplines. However, I sometimes think the point of an undergraduate education in general is to begin the chipping-away process at the assumptions inscribed into students for the first 18 years of their life. I wonder if this is only my English discipline bias or is this really possible across a wide range of disciplines?
On the subject of Sirc, I have to agree and disagree with you. I do think Sirc’s “glorified collage” can be extremely valuable but not only “after” students are comfortable within working conventions. (I wonder how we’re both defining “comfortable” here). I think introducing new concept formations into the learning process at regular intervals is beneficial to the learning process over a period of time. I think giving students another way to think about a concept, even when they are not quite comfortable with the first concept, gives their brain time to process learning in an at-rest state, that is, without hyper-awareness of the task.
Generally, I find myself to be a true Elbow-ite and tend to agree that sometimes, even often, it’s best to write and compose with no audience in mind at all.
Good points,Carrie. Grammar helps contain the box, I guess.
Sirc uses his”collage”/Kaleidoscope method in every sense possible. I don’t know if my mind is equipped to bounce and flow as quickly as his text moves.
But maybe future generations won’t have a problem with this.
Well, part of what you’re saying here Dave is the classic rant against all modern/experimental art: “heck, that’s just paint splattered around. My kid could do that!” One of Duchamp’s most important and influential sculptures was called “Fountain,” and it was simply a urinal that the artist had signed. One of those things that is easily accused of being kinda dumb but still considered to be “great art.”
I think that Sirc is speaking mostly about this “box logic” as a metaphor, and it is useful and interesting I think if we start thinking of writers/authors as being more like “collectors” and “assemblers,” and texts as being more like the “boxes” that Cornell worked with. Metaphorically, that works pretty well for me– and I think it connects well to the stuff we read about databases before too.
Incidentally, students as part of first year writing here at EMU participate in an event every semester called “The Celebration of Student Writing,” and a lot of what students do is this sort of collage/assemblings of things– along with games, acting things out, etc. I know others here have taught that class and they can chime in, but I think it’s a very interesting and useful experience for those students, actually. I don’t know if I’d have an entire semester worth of a class devoted to these kinds of things, but I do think it is very useful to get students to think about their writing and research “outside the box” (so to speak!) of the words in a row essay.
Dave, I am definitely on board with the collage idea. Now, I am torn, however, because I have seen, personally, that my students (both my tenth graders now and my 7th graders when I taught middle school) are so much more excited about working with collages than working with writing. So, I can this two ways–one, that it is the easy way out and that’s why students like it, and two, that it includes more genres, and that’s why students like it.
I also agree with Andrea. I think I would feel more comfortable if the “writing” was segmented into a ‘creative writing’ genre–which is how I view this, and a ‘non-fiction writing or essay writing’ genre. Now, I believe Sirc would disagree with me–I think he would say this genre (if I can call it that) would be applicable to all forms of writing, but it is a little too ‘out there’ for me. I don’t teach college, obviously, but I think students MUST be taught all the necessary forms for successful writing in college, and I daresay that many professors would reject Sirc’s writing forms for their classes. I wonder if students who take this class might be confused when assigned a traditional research paper.
A question for thought regarding his Cornell quote on page 119. Does one become an artist because he collects all this stuff or does it take an artist to see the awesome ways to use all this? What I am thinking is that this whole idea buys so much into art and less into writing.
Also, so many of these articles mention Dreamweaver and Storyspace. Has anyone used these? What can you tell me about them?
One other thought: this whole idea of creating in boxes, isn’t this kind of what so many of our students do with their Myspace accounts? They add lists of their favorite things, pictures of things near and dear to them, connections to music and friends, etc. Maybe this is the natural conjunction between writing and the artistry afforded by the web.??
They are web page building softwares Judy.
You basically use html and programming languages to make your own page.
Good point about the myspace/new media/ box correlation.
It is confusing. Yes this is why I think Sirc wants people to escape one box and create in another box.
His connection with avant garde artists and punk rock music makes a lot of sense to me, but I am not sure if I want to make the connection between new media and avante garde yet.
I am thinking like you Dave, some of the assignments seem to collect junk into a box. I had to re-read the one part when he said bird poop was collected. I think this is one genre that should be taught but now without teaching the basics of essay writing also. The box logic is a new genre that will have to be addressed soon because it is apart of the new literacies. Until students learn the foundation of writing then they can start adding on the creative mix.
I teach at a 2 year college that still requires 4 kinds of essays. The curriculm does not say anything about new digital, visual or audio writing. If I assign projects like the box logic then it is another requirement to fulfil besides the department one. This is okay but this stuff is so brand new not all schools are on board.
Thanks for posting the Wikipedia entry on Joseph Cornell! I have an artist sister and she is completely obsessed with his work and other artists who did box assemblages. We saw a travelling art show with some of his work in it a couple years ago and it was rather interesting and even amazing at times.
I suppose, tying in Joseph Cornell and his work, the whole students as curators and collectors analogy works. To look at this piece in theory/from the cognitive side, they, like Cornell, can piece together things that may be of interest to them and display it in a small “box” for others to view. Cornell took everyday items that would otherwise be overlooked and put them on display as art– building their significance. I think that if we can pique our students’ interests on topics we can get them to contribute to the conversation and add their own new perspective. They don’t necessarily have to create a physical “box”– so I guess it is blending a more modern concept with a more traditional? Does that make sense at all? Probably not after my Monday.
And, to address some of the conversation above, I have to agree with Dave that we need to be careful about what new methods we are using in the classroom. But, in the same regard, we need to think outside of that proverbial box and not stick with the same-old, same-old just because it is comfortable. Cornell decided to turn the ordinary into the interesting and made art history– heck, he has a Wikipedia page. We do not necessarily need to go to Sirc’s lengths, but we should strive to do the same as Cornell in order to get the interests of our students.
Okay I had a real issue with reading this essay but I was able to pull one thing out that I think I can use. On page 113 he writes quoting Elbow “life is long, college short; do we teach to life or college?” and the short answer is to life. But we also have a responsiblity to teach what is expected while they are at college. We cant just ignore that. What i reallly emphasis is the conventions of writing. I talk a lot about purpose, intent, and audience when we do all the different types of writing I have students do. They have to see that writing is not about the teacher (I mean we assign it) but about them and their interaction with the world. I like the ideas–from what i understand in the chapter—and students need to see that writing is not all about school. I mean when you talk to them about FB as a genre they are shocked to hear that. But the truth is they have only (for the most part) been told that real writing happens in the classroom, if not told then led to believe that is the truth. They often write for a teacher and are very much detached from what they write in school. That is where they should be exposed to all these genres of writiing but that is the key, they are often not. This is where the disconnect is between what they think and what they want to do as far as writing goes.
Great response here, Cristin! I couldn’t agree with you more. I, too, said, “Um, life!” to that question. It is hard, though, because our job wants us to teach them how to write like an academic before we teach them how to write like an employee. But, your point is exactly right– we can teach them how to look at writing and how to plan writing that can be applied to both the life and college realm. And, we can teach them how to view writing as a whole (with genres and a social responsibility) and as something that reaches far beyond classroom walls.
I just feel that if we dont teach them then who is? and when the walk into that job will they say “Im prepard to write” or they will write like they did in college and have no clue.
I agree. Students need to see the many different genres they engage in on a daily basis. We need writing in many different ways, but if they start viewing in-school writing more like they do “outside” writing, maybe we can make some deeper connections and make writing more meaningful for them.
Hmm… as soon as Sirk said Duchamp I knew I was in for a spin. And then he mentioned Kurt Cobain, Elbow and Eilola. Not in that order but it seemed to jump jump jump. I’m starting to draw a connection between new media, new literacy and avant garde literature and art. Is this the only way to draw and even entice someone out of a alphanumeric/essayistic box? LOL Just to draw a new one??? *Eyebrows up*
Anyway, he mentions grammar will give new media structure, but come on avant garde artists undo grammar in big big ways.
I like his use of terms, like de facto text. I’ve only used that word in reference to segregation.
I agree with Cristin but I also would add that some people do not separate life from writing.
In fact, I think people like Sirk live for it.
that’s why his words are running crazy all over the page. And I am so distracted that I want to analyze his use of punctuation too.
He uses texts to draw boxes while he is talking about boxes that essayists have built and oddly sometimes the words escape the box.
I dunno.
Seems like poetry.
I’m renewed. My brain is hurting.
He draws several connections but jumps so much it’s hard to keep up (grr). I mean when you draw so many connections between generations and
oops.
I guess I’ll finish that sentence because I don’t have an edit option.
TODAY is a weird weird day on the Web!
Sirc draws connections between these artists and essayists that are from very very different generations and movements. It’s just a lot to take in.
Wow, I agree…it is wierd. I forgot to put this in my original post (I lose so much by being unable to post until I get home from school) but his writing actually reminded me of one of my favorite poems–The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I don’t know why, but it does. All day, in my head, I keep hearing “the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo.” Do ya think it is because he was mixing art and lit, or am I going looney?