What it all might mean

Professionalism

Today’s “writing” primarily involved reading an old draft of a chapter and highlighting things that seem to make a claim that deserves further attention. And so, I offer one such highlighted passage:

The discourse of professional intervention, in other words, identified the problem of teaching labor as a behavioral one: rather than locating the problem in the hierarchical division of labor, the discourse of professionalism that emanated from CCCC tended to locate the problem with the teacher: s/he didn’t know enough; s/he wasn’t properly supervised; s/he wasn’t properly devoted to her work; s/he was confused.

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Book Proposal Submitted!

Woo-hoo! My many (cough) readers may wonder where I have been. They may even suppose I haven’t been working! Far from it. I’ve written a chapter for an edited collection, a conference paper, and a revised book proposal. And I just sent my book proposal off. Yay! On with revisions!

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A revised sentence from Ch. 1

Scholars like Ohmann, however, focus primarily on the ways in which the teaching of English is determined by capitalist interests and thus have little to say about how the complex networks of economic and cultural discourses that make up English departments in general and writing programs in particular.

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They Say/I Say

Whereas the dominant historical narratives of composition studies assume pedagogy to be the central impetus behind the growth of the field, I argue that a materialist genealogy of composition studies will demonstrate the crucial role that administrative imperatives have played in the field’s development.

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One chapter from the annotated TOC

The “social turn” in composition studies during the 1990s, which brought new attention to collaborative forms of pedagogy and ideological forms of criticism,  is often figured as inherently progressive. I argue that these social pedagogies often mirror trends in management, such as Total Quality Management, which similarly advocates a democratic, collaborative organization of the workplace. I draw especially from the work of James Berlin and from studies of Total Quality Management to demonstrate that appeals to the inherent “democratic” work of teaching  may also  function as emotional incentives . . .

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Yes, writing

All of my many readers (cough cough) might wonder at the lack of writing here over the past several days. Have I not been writing?

Fear not, gentle reader. I’ve written every single day. I just grew tired of logging sentences from something other than my book. But I finished that essay during a marathon, day-long writing session on Monday, and now have returned to my book. So look for sentences that are indeed directly book-related beginning tomorrow.

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Dismal science?

A “gay science,” for Nietzsche, is one that enhances life. Economics, on the other hand, seems like relentless necessity: something we simply accept, come to terms with, love or hate depending on our personal financial situation.

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More with the grammar/economics

Scholars in composition and English education have argued for at least the last couple of decades that “correct” grammar is best taught in the context of students’ writing (see, for example, Weaver). Similarly, for W, the way to bridge students’ distance from economics is to prompt them to notice the ways in which economic thought is part of their every day existence, beginning with their classroom production.

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Economics/Grammar

Like standardized grammar, economics is something that must be learned, even if we find it “boring” and beyond our understanding. But also like grammar, economics disguises itself as something that is “natural” and that shouldn’t be messed with by common folk. Grammar as source of cultural capital; economics as source of material capital.

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Working on the book slantwise

Today I spent my writing time on a response essay that is a wee bit overdue. So, technically, I didn’t work on the book today.

However, I would argue that I did indeed work on the book since much of what I’m reading and writing for the essay is closely related to the book. And so here’s a sentence from some loose drafting I did today:

But if LC’s collection suffers from an assumption that neoliberal economics is good and needs defending (see Edwards), then we might say W suffers a bit at the other end of the economic pole, assuming that neoliberal economics is bad and needs exposing.

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