Schon, Educating the Reflective Practicioner

Schon, Donald. “Educating the Reflective Practicioner.” American Educational Research Association. 1987. Washington, DC. Web. http://resources.educ.queensu.ca/ar/schon87.htm 18 January 2012.

Schon, who sets out a context of contemporary conversations about school reform and teacher accountability and the history of higher education, which draws a line between (high) theory and (low) practice, argues that good teaching is artistic, responsive, and spontaneous in nature. He argues for a change in how teachers are prepared to teach, suggesting that they be taught (or rather coached) through reflective practicums, in the same vein as the practical education doctors, artists, and musicians receive.

Schon highlights that in these practicums, uncertainty and vulnerbility feature prominently: the students (the prospective teachers) are the ones who have to figure out what it is they are learning; their instructors can’t tell them discrete, contained bits of knowledge that then they can transfer. Reflective, spontaneous, artistic teachers experiment, test, and improvise.

Schon points out that this kind of teacher training can only flourish in an environment that grants teachers the freedom to experiment and the permission to be confused.

Quotes

“But underneath the debate about the schools, as it cycles through our history, certain fundamental questions keep coming up: “What are the competences that teachers should be trying to help students, kids acquire?” “What kinds of knowledge and what sort of know-how should teachers have in order to do their jobs well?” What kinds of education are most likely to help teachers prepare for effective teaching?”"

“this capacity to respond to surprise through improvisation on the spot is what I mean by reflection-in-action. When a teacher turns her attention to giving kids reason to listening what they say, then teaching itself becomes a form of reflection-in action, and I think this formulation helps to describe what it is that constitutes teaching artistry. It involves getting in touch with what kids are actually saying and doing; it involves allowing yourself to be surprised by that, and allowing yourself to be surprised, I think, is appropriate, because you must permit yourself to be surprised, being puzzled by what you get and responding to the puzzle through an on-the-spot experiment that you make, that responds to what the kid says or does. “

“And this is teaching in the form of reflection-in-action. It involves a surprise, a response to surprise by thought turning back on itself, thinking what we’re doing as we do it, setting the problem of the situation anew, conducting an action experiment on the spot by which we seek to solve the new problems we’ve set, an experiment in which we test both our new way of seeing the situation, and also try to change that situation for the better. And reflection-in-action need not be an intellectual or verbalized activity. If you think about–my favourite example of reflection-in-action is jazz, because if you think about people playing jazz within a framework of beat and rhythm and melody that is understood, one person plays and another person responds, and responds on the spot to the way he hears the tune, making it different to correspond to the difference he hears, improvisation in that sense is a form of reflection-in-action. And so is good conversation which must be neither wholly predictable nor wholly unpredictable. If it’s wholly predictable, it’s boring and not good, and if it’s wholly unpredictable, it’s crazy. Good conversation, which all of us have some gift for, involves a moving between those extremes in a kind of on-line observation and action which is so natural and spontaneous to us that we don’t even think about the capacity we have to do it.”

“My experience in other kinds of reflective practicums such as the design studio in architecture is that the phenomena of confusion and mystery and anger are endemic at the beginning”

“But all this depends on there being at the heart of the school a core of people, at least a small group of people, who are prepared to create a new kind of research presence, who want to produce experiences and knowledge which is usable by teachers. I think that’s the crucial feature–that their research would be usable. That it would be engaged collaboratively with teachers, that it would be conducted on line in experience with teachers, and that it would be aimed at healing the splits between teaching and doing, school and life, research and practice, which have been so insidiously effective at deadening the experience of school at all levels. “

Notes

there is an ongoing tradition, dialogue about reforming school – nothing new

difference between school-based knowledge and knowledge acquired outside school (tacit, experimential, improvisational)

argues against the separation of theory and practice

distinguishes between reflection-in-action and reflection-on-reflection-in-action

teaching like jazz improv

Pytlik and Liggett, Preparing College Teachers of Writing

Pytlik, Betsy P. and Sarah Liggett. Preparing College Teachers of Writing: Histories, Theories, Programs, Practices. New York: Oxford, 2002.

This edited collection brings together a wide variety of essays centered on the preparation of college teachers of writing (specifically focused on TAs.) They discuss what teachers of writing need to know about writing and what kinds of structures help support them in their learning about composition theories and practices. The collection is organized into four sections, addressing these questions: “What are the historical contexts for TA preparation programs? What theories inform TA preparation programs? How are successful TA programs structured? What teaching practices have proven effective in preparing TAs for college writing classrooms?”

The editors do not argue for best practices; rather, they insist that TA preparation must be dynamic to local needs and constraints.

Fulkerson, Richard. “Preface: Preparing the Professors.” xi-xiv

In the preface (“Preparing the Professors”), Richard Fulkerson notes that recent trends in teacher preparation share three common practices or concepts: the idea of teaching as a reflective practice, the role of mentoring in teacher preparation, and the creation and use of teaching portfolios as representation of a teacher’s practice and development.

Quotes

reflection has its roots in Dewey, Donald Schon – “It is an activity characterized by the conscious and conscientious attention of a prepared practicioner, rather than the essential mindlessness of a trained organism. As such it absolutely demands the use of writing as a tool.” (xiii)

Notes

sources to get:

Schon Educating the Reflective Practicioner

essays to look at in this collection:

Weiser, Irwin. “When Teaching Assistants Teach Teaching Assistants How to Teach” – looks at Purdue’s 30-year-history of mentoring new TAs with experienced TAs

Rose, Shirley K. and Margaret J. Finders “Thinking Together: Developing a Reciprocol Reflective Model for Approaches to Preparing College Teachers of Writing.”

Bamberg, Betty. “Creating a Culture of Reflective Practice: A Program for Continuing TA Preparation after the Practicum.”

Ebest, Sally Barr “Mentoring: Past, Present, Future.” – how mentoring arrangements and relationships are made, the power differential that occurs

Bender, Gita Das “Orientation and Mentoring: Collaborative Practices in Teacher Preparation” – year-long staff development with collaboration between administration and teachers

Wanda Martin and Charles Paine. “Mentors, Models, and Agents of Change.” how veteran TAs help with teacher training and preparation

Lindgren, Margaret. “The Teaching Portfolio: Practicing What We Teach” – how the TA’s teaching portfolio can help analyze the effectiveness of TA training programs

Dobrin, Introduction: Finding Space for the Composition Practicum

Dobrin, Sidney. “Introduction: Finding Space for the Composition Practicum.” In Don’t Call It That: The Composition Practicum. Ed. Dobrin. Urbana: NCTE, 2005. 1-34.

This introduction sets out the scope of the author’s edited collection, which explores the debates surrounding the graduate (sometimes undergraduate) composition practicum: the place of theory in the course, its curriculum, its aims, its ramifications for institutional politics, and its place in disciplinary research, scholarship, and identity.

Dobrin claims that the composition practicum is not merely about training teachers to teach composition or professionalizing those teachers; rather, what the composition practicum course does is enculturate those students “into the cultural ideologies of composition.” This fact, Dobrin claims, makes “the practicum one of the most powerful and important spaces of occupation in composition studies.” (21). He argues that composition studies should be more aware of the power the practicum has on the field as a whole.

Dobrin argues that the debates about the composition practicum are political in nature and centered on the perpetual divide and debate of theory/practice, and therefore the questions raised by the composition practicum are shared with the questions inherent in composition studies and writing program administration scholarship. Dobrin argues that the composition practicum is a particularly important site for the field to study, as it is where the identity of the discipline is often defined for the next generation of scholars; thus, the composition practicum is where the field’s “cultural capital” is created and perpetuated.

Dobrin surveys the history of the composition practicum at American universities since the turn of the 20th century, noting that not much has changed in regards to the incorporation of both theory and practice in the course and the political arguments that surround the course.

Quotes

“The practicum functions as a primary purveyor of composition’s cultural capital.” (6)

“Let’s face it, as a device through which ideologies are reinforced and programmatic cultures are created and maintained, the practicum course is a powerful tool not only for guiding the ways new teachers learn to think about their teaching, but also for controlling how and in what ways the very discipline of composition studies is perpetuated. The cultural capital of composition studies is maintained and immortalized by way of the practicum.” (4)

“Practica give shape and formula to the identity of programs. This notion of program identity is important because it carries cultural capital through to first-year students and what it means “to write.”” (26)

Notes

focuses on the graduate (TA) composition practicum course, which is often more than day-to-day advice and “how-to” practical help, serving instead as an introduction to composition theories and histories

central issue: legitimization (is the practicum course rigorous enough? Is practice critical enough? should the practicum course be given for credit?)

a challenge of the course: it is often the only course graduate student take in composition theory, history, or practice. It has a lot of ground to cover.

Some problems Dobrin addresses:

Much of the literature about teacher preparation and the practicum is grounded in the local – both because, perhaps, there is little other context, and also because the theory of what we do is so grounded in the relationships and experiences we have – it is practical (30)

1. the composition practicum is seen as an introduction to the field, but the field is not all about teaching and also not all about FYC (22)

2. requiring all English grad students to take a practicum reinforces the subordinate position of composition (as something students must do and be “trained” to do instead of what they want to do) (22)

3. A WPA’s approach in her program can often be traced back to the single composition practicum course that she took as a graduate student (27) – exponential influence

4. confusion of teacher/student identity: are those in the practicum teachers or students?

3. the composition practicum is an argument, forwarding a particular vision of professionalization and the field (through theories, methods, vocabulary) and is also a mechanism for “policing,” control and enculturation (24-25)

Guerra/Bawarshi’s essay in this collection looks at shifts between different WPAs in the same program: “cult of personality”

CCCC Position Statement on the Preparation and Professional Development of Teachers of Writing

“CCCC Position Statement on the Preparation and Professional Development of Teachers of Writing.” Conference on College Composition and Communication. 1982. Web. 31 Dec. 2011.

This 1982 CCCC position statement argues that teachers of writing at all levels need adequate training and ongoing professional development to do their jobs well. The position statement is clearly influenced by the contemporary movements in the field of rhetoric and composition (writing as a process, writing to learn, connections between rhetoric and composition and linguistics, cognitive psychology, etc.)

Specifically, they state that teachers preparing to teach writing should, in the course of their training, have the opportunity to 1. write, 2. read and respond to writings done by students and colleagues, 3. read their own writing critically, 4. understand and practice writing as a process, 5. understand and practice writing to learn, 6. learn how to assess writing, 7. study research in the discipline, and 8. study writing in relation to other disciplines. The position statement calls on all those responsible for the preparation of teachers of writing (English faculty, English education faculty, secondary schools, state education departments) to invest in the disciplinary-grounded model of teacher education they propose.

http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/statementonprep

Notes

guidelines for teacher preparation, but not explicit arguments for what should constitute ongoing training and preparation

Aslup, Janet, et al., “Seeking Connections, Articulating Commonalities”

Aslup, Janet, Elizabeth Brockman, Jonathan Bush, and Mark Letcher. “Seeking Connections, Articulating Commonalities: English Education, Composition Studies, and Writing Teacher Education.” CCC 62:4 (June 2011) 668-686.

In the Special Symposium on the NCTE/CCCC Relationship

The authors explain how the SIG on Composition-English Education Connections has helped define a forum for groups of people interested in the training and support of writing teachers who normally would not cross paths, either identifying with NCTE or CCCC. This article explains the history of the SIG’s creation (first meeting in 2001), the effects the work of the SIG have had on scholarship and curriculum, and argues that the work of the SIG can form a launching point for future NCTE/CCCC collaborations that focus on the critical examination and research of pedagogy.

The authors note three themes emerging from the work of the SIG: 1. the development of a writing teacher identity that moves “across the borders” of NCTE and CCCC (674); 2. practical teaching and mentoring suggestions; and 3. innovation and growth in scholarship (connections with technology, writing centers, collaborations.) They also point out that the informal dialogue that happens at the SIG is crucial – the SIG gives those who practice writing teacher education the time and space to talk and come up with ideas (677).

Notes

The co-authors are former and current Composition-English Education Connections CCCC SIG leaders, whose members include WPAs, writing center coordinators, writing faculty, writing methods faculty, fieldwork supervisors, and National Writing Project directors (668)

topics discussed in early SIG meetings: Portfolio assessment, writing teacher identity, National Writing Project, literature/writing divide in teacher education

lists sample presentations given at the SIG meeting – other than those presentations, though, the meetings are informal, dialogic

Robert Tremmel and William Broz’s Teaching Writing Teachers of High School English and First-Year Composition as a foundational text

Good timing for the SIG: the journal Pedagogy  in comp/rhet signals the field’s interest in pedagogical issues, Common Core State Standards and push for college-readiness curriculum, WPA’s Framework for Success, NCTE and CCCC statements on the teaching of writing and 21st century literacies (678-679)

Quotes

Books/articles/scholarship alone cannot help writing teacher educators grow and develop: “Individuals must be prompted to come together, to convene at a time and place conducive to critical discussion and the sharing of ideas.” (677)

“These questions and the kinds fo answers that SIG presentations provide are inherently linked to larger research and policy efforts, and they are far more complex and central to the field than simply ‘what works’ in the classroom. The position and policy statements of NCTE and CCCC are the foundation for strategic initiatives, professional development, publishing, and professional conferences and hence influence the teaching and learning of English language arts around the United States” (679).

Reid, “Preparing Writing Teachers”

Reid, E. Shelley. “Preparing Writing Teachers: A Case Study in Constructing a More Connected Future for CCCC and NCTE.” CCC 62.4 (June 2011): 687-703.

In the CCC Special Symposium on the NCTE/CCCC Relationship

Reid argues that the research, scholarship, and practice in the training of writing teachers, which she terms “writing pedagogy education,” can be fruitful ground for future collaborations between NCTE (focusing on K-12 English education) and CCCC (college composition and rhetoric.)  Reid claims that as a professional organization, CCCC has turned away from the practical issues of training teachers to teach writing.  She insists that scholarship on writing teacher preparation, instead being regulated to the margins of the field, as a solitary-institution specific practice or ”sub-field” special interest group,  can bring together a variety of members of NCTE and CCCC in order to work on developing policy and practices for the training of writing teachers. In this way, Reid sees potential for a sub-field (writing pedagogy education) to revitalize larger disciplinary organizations.

Reid uses her own efforts to chair a SIG on the Education and Mentoring of TAs and Instructors in Composition and her work on the CCCC Committee on Preparing Teachers of Writing to show how difficult it was, with limited time and resources, to weave together local experiences of writing pedagogy education into a coherent, useful, and theorized whole about the preparation of teachers of writing. Reid calls on WPAs and those who train writing teachers to stop seeing themselves as “local practitioners” and rather, as part of a national, scholarly organization whose aim is to “articulate a larger vision” about writing pedagogy education (692-693). She argues that forums like SIGs and commissioned committees are not stable or sufficient enough to provide writing pedagogy education practicioners and researchers what they need: momentum and diversity of members. She suggests that CCCC follow NCTE’s lead and form a task force on writing pedagogy education, which could help create and support research grants, national studies, or online clearinghouses.

Reid points out specifically that “few studies of writing pedagogy education are data-driven, longitudinal, or inclusive of more than one program.” (692)

Notable Notes

Argues that scholarship in writing pedagogy education can address Patricia Stock’s 3rd question in what English education is: “(1) What is English? (2) How is English best taught and learned? and (3) How are teachers of English best prepared for their professional work?” (368, Stock “NCTE and the Preparation of Teachers of the English Language Arts,” 2010)

common problem in writing pedagogy education: the local: the isolation of individual writing programs, institution-specific needs and policies. No national network or conversation.

problems facing writing pedagogy education: How do you quantify teacher quality (tie in with national discussions on teacher tenure)? How can you measure writing learning as connected to teacher quality? How long does it take to develop good writing practices?  (692)

Move beyond the discussion of “what worked for us.” (692)

Covino, Rhetorical Pedagogy

Covino, William A.  ”Rhetorical Pedagogy.” In A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. Eds. Tate, Rupiper, and Schick. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. 36-52.

Covino explains rhetorical pedagogy as one of the possibilities writing teachers can employ when teaching composition. Corbin also describes the history of rhetorical education from ancient times to its “fall” with Ramus in the 17th century, to the move toward current-traditionalist rhetoric in the 18th and 19th centuries, to the resurrgence of new rhetorics (Burke, Richards, etc) in the 20th century.

Rhetorical pedagogy emphasizes a deliberate attention to the history of rhetoric and to rhetorical theory, using concepts from rhetoric to help develop students’ flexibility as writers. Instead of using formulas or set “modes” to teach writing, rhetorical pedagogy encourages students to develop their ability to invent, be attentive to kairos and constraints of audience and context, and think about the broader ethical consequences of rhetoric.

Notes and Quotes

Crowley, Corbett, Schiappa, Enos, Jarratt, Murphy, Kennedy, Lunsford, Knoblauch and Brannon, Horner

Uses ancient, modern, postmodern rhetorical theory

Enos and Miller, Beyond Postprocess and Postmodernism

Enos, Theresa and Keith D. Miller; with Jill McCracken (Eds.). Beyond postprocess and postmodernism: Essays on the spaciousness of rhetoric. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum (2004).

This collection centers on a discussion of Corderian Rhetoric (Jim Corder), a rhetoric that plays between narrative, creative nonfiction, expressivism, classical rhetoric, and academic discourse, asking in various essays how this rhetoric can impact the field’s scholarship and teaching. It looks to see how the field might begin to value nonacademic, nonprofessional writing and rhetoric, including expressive writing, seeing it as something to be practiced and theorized as a legitimate way of knowing.

Corder advocates dialogic rhetoric with the goal of discussion and dialogue instead of “winning” an argument.

Quotes and Notes

A collection inspired by and dedicated to Jim Corder (“Argument as Emergence; Rhetoric as Love”); Corderian rhetoric, pushing boundaries of academic/nonacademic rhetoric, style – a combination of classical rhetoric and expressivism

“Certainly, rhetoric and composition studies is now – and perhaps has always been – a complex field characterized by agreements and tensions, as bodies of thought crash, merge, and shift like the tectonic plates of the earth’s surface” (vii)

“gentle persuasion” (ix)

Corder wrote Uses of Rhetoric, was a friend of Winterowd, Berlin, Corbett, Kinneavy, D’Angelo, Burke.

Explored ancient, modern, postmodern rhetoric, weaving them together in his own thinking.

 

Enos and Miller, Beyond Postprocess and Postmodernism

Enos, Theresa and Keith D. Miller; with Jill McCracken (Eds.). Beyond postprocess and postmodernism: Essays on the spaciousness of rhetoric. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum (2004).

This collection centers on a discussion of Corderian Rhetoric (Jim Corder), a rhetoric that plays between narrative, creative nonfiction, expressivism, classical rhetoric, and academic discourse, asking in various essays how this rhetoric can impact the field’s scholarship and teaching. It looks to see how the field might begin to value nonacademic, nonprofessional writing and rhetoric, including expressive writing, seeing it as something to be practiced and theorized as a legitimate way of knowing.

Corder advocates dialogic rhetoric with the goal of discussion and dialogue instead of “winning” an argument.

Quotes and Notes

A collection inspired by and dedicated to Jim Corder (“Argument as Emergence; Rhetoric as Love”); Corderian rhetoric, pushing boundaries of academic/nonacademic rhetoric, style – a combination of classical rhetoric and expressivism

“Certainly, rhetoric and composition studies is now – and perhaps has always been – a complex field characterized by agreements and tensions, as bodies of thought crash, merge, and shift like the tectonic plates of the earth’s surface” (vii)

“gentle persuasion” (ix)

Corder wrote Uses of Rhetoric, was a friend of Winterowd, Berlin, Corbett, Kinneavy, D’Angelo, Burke.

Explored ancient, modern, postmodern rhetoric, weaving them together in his own thinking.

Fleming, Becoming Rhetorical

Fleming, David.   “Becoming rhetorical: An education in the topics.”   In Bahri, Deepika; Joseph Petraglia (Eds.), The realms of rhetoric: Inquiries into the prospects for rhetoric education. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2003.

Fleming shows, through an investigation of the topics (topoi), how there is true rhetorical knowledge and how that knowledge can push students to develop in discursive ability. He calls for scholars and teachers of rhetoric to turn back to the heart of rhetoric, which depends upon a multiyear curriculum where students have the opportunity to develop, naturally and deeply, as rhetoricians influenced by ethics and virtue towards civic, responsible ends. He warns against rudimentary definitions of rhetoric  – “checklists” of terms and ideas divorced from a larger ethical base – and also all-encompassing theories of rhetoric that, in their largeness, make rhetoric also meaningless. The goal of rhetoric, Fleming argues, is not so much to transmit a certain kind of knowledge but to develop a certain kind of person, an ethical, productive, civically-minded, knowledgable leader. That development depends on practice, imitation, exercises, and repetition.

Topics depend on understanding the commonplaces of a particular culture – what that culture values, what opinions are generally accepted, the “endoxa”  of a community, what allows people to meet together on the same ground.

Rhetorical education, Fleming argues, can’t hope that students will absorb a rhetorical sensibility through mere exposure to many different disciplines and ways of knowing, the foundation of liberal arts education. Rather, rhetorical education needs to help students develop a rhetorical self-consciousness, flexible but still concrete in vocabulary and purpose, “an art that, once learned, confers on students a genuine practical and ethical ability” (105).

Fleming, with this goal in mind, proposes a richer, teachable theory of the topics that includes five broad categories of rhetorical knowledge: 1. circumstantial knowledge; 2. verbal formulae, 3. common sense; 4. models of textual development; and 5. logical norms.

Notes and Quotes

“The topics we organize this way shuold be infinitely malleable, capable of being adapted and used in multiple ways in different situations. What I am after, in other words, is a theory that can accomodate diverse kinds of resources, one that is focused on situated practice in particular communities, and one that sees the words and things of those communities as practically plastic in the hands of its speakers, hearers, writers, and readers” (104).

rhetoric can’t be taught in one course – it needs to be infused into an entire curriculum

“Where classical rhetoric took a remarkably precise language and dedicated it to an ambitious political-ethical project, the new rhetoric takes a highly elastic vocabulary and puts it to rather trivial ends” (93).

topics: “an ancient set of pedagogical resources designed to help speakers and writers invent arguments for public debate” (94): “My appraoch will be to see the topics as a species of political knowledge that, through theory and practice, can be made part of the student’s very character” (94)

“Rhetoric is at once overburdened and underburdeded with content” (94) – the challenge is to find a place between particularilty and generality (95)

the topics are commonplaces – places to go to discover arguments, a set of heuristics to help invention

connection between Toulmin’s warrants and Aristotle’s topics.

modern rhetorical theory has taken out the content and context of the original topics in order to create a more universal form of rhetoric.

Problem: “A theory of argument situated at the intersection of politics [specificity] and logic [generality] will always elude us; the best we can do is choose one path or the other and stick to it, hoping that our students, at least, will learn to merge the two in their practical lives” (103)

need something more substantial than the rhetorical triangle

Fleming’s theory of topics:

• circumstantial knowledge – context, history, people, places, familiarity
• verbal formulae – discursive resources and languages of the community, through wide reading and listening
• common sense – values, truths, preferences that exist in that community
• modes of textual development – the structures of everyday arguments in the community, patterns, modes, things that direct and shape thought in that community
• logical norms – the norms that authorize arguments, warrants, inference

The problem of the paper cycle in typical freshman composition classes: (110)

1. they are too long for close work but too short to do real work: “they are neither the kind of discursive chunk that constitutes an utterance, a move in written or spoken discourse, nor the kind of project that results from weeks, months, or even years of active engagement with real intellectual or practical problems.
2. they aren’t sequenced developmentally, to build off each other
3. students work on them too slowly, tediously drafting over and over again

Draws on the ideas of the New London Group: inquiry into a specific text or situation, recursive thinking and writing. Gives example of Brown vs Board of Education  sourcebook