Comments on: Response to Curtiss & Jenny http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2004/08/09/response-to-curtiss-jenny/ faults | sins | abuses Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:53:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: Dennis G. Jerz http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2004/08/09/response-to-curtiss-jenny/#comment-751 Dennis G. Jerz Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/archives/2004/08/09/response-to-curtiss-jenny/#comment-751 Th phrase "stages students as stooges" is quite a mouthful. You can hardly keep from spitting while saying it. Great phrasing! Stop staging students as stooges, stealthy sticklers steeped in stamina! Okay, mine didn't make sense, but it was fun spitting it out. Th phrase “stages students as stooges” is quite a mouthful. You can hardly keep from spitting while saying it. Great phrasing!

Stop staging students as stooges, stealthy sticklers steeped in stamina!

Okay, mine didn’t make sense, but it was fun spitting it out.

]]> By: Dennis G. Jerz http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2004/08/09/response-to-curtiss-jenny/#comment-752 Dennis G. Jerz Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/archives/2004/08/09/response-to-curtiss-jenny/#comment-752 At some point in the past few years I read an article that argued that the institutional purpose of composition courses was to instill middle-class values such as punctuality and thoroughness. An argument like that opens the door to the suggestion that college students need to be freed from this ideological brainwashing. Those who are keenest about liberating students from this ideological burden are often all too happy to supply the one they developed in grad school. While I don't claim to be unbiased, I feel as long as I can keep my students guessing about what my real opinions are, then I can do my best work as a writing teacher and journalism teacher. That kind of posed neutrality is artificial, and in practice I'm not uniform about when I adopt that stance, but in class I do talk about my stance and why I take it. I present it in the framework of "I don't want you to think that you'll get extra points for arguing the position that I feel is right," because that gives the students a handle on it, but it's really just the tip of an iceberg. Thanks, Mike, for blogging your thoughts on this. At some point in the past few years I read an article that argued that the institutional purpose of composition courses was to instill middle-class values such as punctuality and thoroughness. An argument like that opens the door to the suggestion that college students need to be freed from this ideological brainwashing. Those who are keenest about liberating students from this ideological burden are often all too happy to supply the one they developed in grad school.

While I don’t claim to be unbiased, I feel as long as I can keep my students guessing about what my real opinions are, then I can do my best work as a writing teacher and journalism teacher. That kind of posed neutrality is artificial, and in practice I’m not uniform about when I adopt that stance, but in class I do talk about my stance and why I take it.

I present it in the framework of “I don’t want you to think that you’ll get extra points for arguing the position that I feel is right,” because that gives the students a handle on it, but it’s really just the tip of an iceberg.

Thanks, Mike, for blogging your thoughts on this.

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