Expanding The Dialogue on Culture

    Arnetha F. Ball conducted a study on how composition assessment practices impact and are impacted by power culture. She presents an argument for an assessment reformation that includes input from teachers from diverse backgrounds, particularly when it comes to assessing culturally and linguistically diverse students. Her research is based off of six such students from lower- and working-class backgrounds. Three of the students were African American who spoke African American vernacular English (AAVE) and mainstream American English. Two students were U.S. born Hispanic-American and were fluent in both Spanish and English, and the sixth student was European-American student who spoke only mainstream American English.
    The teachers Ball enlisted to partake in the research consisted of four European American teachers and four African American teachers. They were provided with training on a rubric that had a 6-point holistic rating and 4-point rating each on organization, coherence and mechanics. Through their grading of the students’ writings, Ball found both sets of teachers consistently scored the texts written by the European American student with the highest points, the African American students’ texts moderate points, and the Hispanic American students’ texts with the lowest points, despite not having shared student demographics with the teachers in advance.
    The African-American teachers on average gave lower scores to all students than the European American teachers did. On the six-point scale, European-American teachers scoring of the European-American student’s work ranged from 3.56-5.06, the African American students’ texts ranged 3.19 to 4.5, while the African-American teachers ranked the European American student’s texts 2.19-3.31 and the African-American students’ texts 2.5-3.69.
    Ball states that the higher standards African-American teachers hold for the students stems from a cultural belief. “In the African-American culture, it is often felt that teachers who have low expectations for their students are denying them opportunities to learn how to participate and survive in the real world” (183). While I do not think that belief is unique to African-American teachers, Ball’s statement earlier statement about how the power culture influences writing assessment rings true. As one teacher said, although we “do our students a disservice if we don’t in some way assess for accuracy,” it is equally important that we assess the students’ works for content (184). Another teacher emphasized the need to change teachers’ “expectations of the students by working closer with students of color and being sensitive to their needs as a learner; not sensitive to them being a person of color” (186).
    Ultimately, Ball’s research suggests that a change in composition assessments and assessment dialogue is needed, but a simplification of those assessments is not what is needed. Common amongst all four African-American teachers was a concern about doing their students a “disservice” by assessing their writing too gently. Instead, recognition that African-American students’ ideas are complex is a requirement, and their ideas should not be penalized because they need assistance working out the mechanics of writing. As one teacher wrote, “Written language is often an inadequate vehicle to express all the nuances of what African-American students have to say. It’s like jazz music. Jazz musicians will tell you that the European system of music notation cannot capture the essence of what, for example, Charlie Parker played on his saxophone” (189). The real question is, the teacher continues, “what should be judged first?”

Experiential Knowledge

    At risk of exploiting a cliche, I have to admit I found this article rather enlightening. In “Experiential Knowledge: How Literacy Practices Seek to Mediate Personal and Systemic Change,” Gwen Gorzelsky uses the teachings of a Zen teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, to demonstrate how procedural knowledge and conceptual knowledge combine to create a framework for experiential knowledge, and then how that experiential knowledge, when appropriately applied within the provided framework, leads to individual and systemic changes. While Gorzelsky’s examples focus on how reading guided meditation and visualization leads to a spiritual and humanitarian change, she suggests substituting general literacy practices for meditation and visualization will offer students similar opportunities for personal growth and self-efficacy.
    The procedural knowledge Gorzelsky utilizes in her example is visualization during guided meditations. Nhat Hanh’s guided meditations

asks practitioners to undertake step-by-step visualizations designed to generate calm and  relaxation, and then encourages practitioners to focus on this state as the foundation of peace and joy in the present moment. The second emphasizes focusing mindful attention on negative emotions and mental states to generate insights that help transform these states into more positive ones. (407)

These two steps are procedures that, when combined with the third step, which introduces the conceptual knowledge Nhat Hanh’s teachings impart, build the necessary framework to allow the practitioner to effect personal change. Procedural knowledge, then, is the how needed to apply the what.
    Conceptual knowledge (the what) is reflected in the third step in which the practitioner applies the concepts of emptiness, the belief that no one has an inherent nature separate of external influences such as politics, culture, ecology, family and so on, and interdependence, in which there is a relationship between those external causes. When the practitioner applies the conceptual and procedural knowledges in the fourth step, they experience a connection between themselves that which they meditated upon.
    The resulting experiential knowledge drives a sense of compassion and a desire to take action. By maintaining sustain, mindful practice of these steps, the ultimate result is not a one-time experience but instead redirects the practitioner’s core understanding. To be most effective, the practice must address intense emotions, emphasize high stakes and offer successful examples of change. This new personal understanding causes systemic shifts because the newly-enlightened practitioners will feel an intense need to address and reconcile social injustices.
    In terms of literacy practices, the procedural knowledge students need to learn would be the writing process. The conceptual knowledge, then, would consist of core curriculum topics that allow students to explore subjects that are meaningful to them. When student combine their practice of composition skills with meaningful topics, their writings result in an acquisition of experiential knowledge. They can then take that knowledge and apply it to their personal influences on the world around them.

Constructing the Perspective of Teacher-as-Reader

    Following with my theme of teacher commentary for this week’s reviews, I also studied Melanie Sperling’s article, “Constructing the Perspective of Teacher-as-Reader: A Framework for Studying Response to Student Writing.” Sperling’s goal is to begin understanding “what constitutes reader perspective for students learning to write and how such perspectives can get construed in a high school classroom” (176). The resulting research provides an introductory framework through which additional studies can focus their theories. Sperling labels five orientations characterizing the teacher’s perspective that her research indicates are a factor in teacher-student and reader-writer dynamics. While these orientations are identified independently, Sperling also indicates the connection between them as they are not mutually exclusive.
    As a teacher reads and responds to a student essay, the Interpretative Orientation helps shape her commentary. Sperling found that one of two modes of thought fall under the Interpretative Orientation influence: the teacher responds to the work through the lens of “(a) her own world experience / text knowledge / inner feelings or (b) her sense of the writer’s world experience / text knowledge / inner feelings” (183). For example, when lens (a) is influencing the commentary, the teacher might write a statement that deals with her own interpretation of the text. If lens (b) is the influence, then she might write comments that express an understanding of the student’s thoughts or feelings, such as one teacher’s response of, “Great! You’re lucky!” to a student who expresses her close relationship with her parents.
    The next influence on teacher commentary is Social Orientation. There are two social group perspectives from which she will write her commentary: (a) a peer or (b) as an expert / instructor / literary scholar (183). If the teacher writes a comment relating with the student on a topic, then the it falls under type (a). One example Sperling provides is the teacher commenting that she, too, was a “roller coaster junkie.” She makes no claim to having more knowledge on the subject than the student, unlike type (b) in which she will take on a didactic role.
    The analytical or emotional nature of a comment demonstrates the influence of Cognitive / Emotive Orientation on the teacher’s response. The emotional response is connected to the example for type (b) of the Interpretive Orientation in that a response demonstrating “emotional immediacy” (184) may be an exclamatory remark such as “Great!” or “Yes!” An analytic response, naturally, occurs when the teacher maintains intellectual distance and questions the writer’s thought process, rhetoric, etc.
    As the teacher evaluated the texts, she responded either negatively or positively, which falls under the Evaluative Orientation. Essentially, the teacher’s comments will imply, or even explicitly state, whether or not the student’s work accomplished the intended goals.
    Finally, the Pedagogical Orientation occurs when the teacher attempts to teach by “(a) changing or correcting the writer’s ideas / text (language, structure), (b) expanding the writer’s ideas / text, or (c) supporting the writer’s ideas / text. Such teaching attempts occur regardless of which Evaluative Orientation type influenced the teacher’s notes. For example, a positive comment would act as positive reinforcement of a concept taught in a previous lesson while a negative comment would indicate a technical error or a misconception that the teacher must reteach and / or correct.
    I found Sperling’s work to be interesting, and, as she suggests later in her article, I would assume the orientations to be universal. However, this study consists of one teacher and essays from only eight students. Educators would benefit from more thorough research. Sperling does go on to break down the commentary, focusing primarily on two students at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of their work quality, and she suggests that the teacher modified her commentary type based off of her knowledge of her students’ needs and levels. Although interesting, the limited nature of the study (my opinion against which is more harshly slanted due to having read this article after the Connors and Lunsford study consisting of 300 teachers and 3,000 papers) and what I find to be a fairly obvious conclusion that teachers differentiate their instruction leaves this article wanting. Indeed, I do agree with Sperling that additional studies must be conducted.