Error in the Blog!

Every other week a group from each composition section blogs on an article from Writing about Writing. One article that generated excellent blogs and commentary was Joseph Williams’ “Phenomenology of Error.” Of course, it didn’t surprise me that students reveled in and related to Williams’ almost devious inquiry into the meaning and consequences of error. He takes the position that error is a long-held construct that is perpetuated in a concatenation of texts ranging from Strunk and White’s classic style guide to student essays. In fact, he presents error as a culture. Students laugh when he asks whether the misused substitution of “that” for “which” is really equal to social errors such as breaking wind at a dinner party. They get a kick out of his deliberate inclusion of 100 errors in his published essay.

For some students, the article is a welcome indictment of the culture of error and an opportunity to ask teachers to read writing for its content, puh-leasssse. A substantial number of students recoil at the thought of teachers abandoning the red pen markups and simultaneously cry against the landslide of text-speak and its complete disregard for grammatical conventions. One of my favorite student comments was when a female challenged a string of comments that claimed that young writers sported a post-error ethos, that no one cared anymore, and that the error apocalypse had stripped away the need for constraining rules of writing. She exclaimed, “I am willing to bet that Mr. Wray cares about grammar as much as any English teacher you’ve ever had. They are English majors after all!” How could I help but smile as the students emerged from the commentary as punks, trads, and pedagogues? The writing was changing the way they thought, how they expressed their ideas, and even how they presented their identities! I witnessed blogging at its best.

The real teaching moment was yet to come. It sat there, posted on the blog, radiating from our monitors, but did anyone actually see it? I admit to doing a double take when I read a blog titled “Joseph Williams’ ‘Phenomenology of Error’” as it proceeded to offer a well-written explication of Michael Kleine’s article on research methods. The students really understood Kleine’s challenge to teachers and students to strive for discovery and inquiry in their research, but wasn’t the post supposed to be about Williams’ article? I considered writing an email to point out the mistake. After deciding against such an authoritative interference—it is their blog after all—I began to type a comment that questioned the bizarre gaff, but I canceled it instead. Let the student readers call out this misguided group, I thought. So I sat back and glanced at my laptop screen between commercials on the Monday Night Football broadcast. As they started coming in, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Comment after comment, students wrote complimentary agreements with the bloggers’ text. This was surprising since the class had thoroughly discussed Kleine’s article on research; they should have recognized that this was Kleine’s argument. Ten comments came in and no one saw the error. When the class met for our next session, I asked the students to reread the blog on the big screen and write about its most striking feature. We formed a circle and began to share our observations. It wasn’t until the ninth speaker, that a student finally uttered the comment I had been waiting for: “The blog is on the wrong article.” The room fell silent, the bloggers blushed, and then everyone started smiling. From there, we began a meaningful conversation about William’s point about reading. The blog audience read the article with open minds, truly seeking the “good” in their peers writing and they found it even though it was attributed to the wrong writer. While everyone, including the bloggers, agreed that the error substantially affected the meaning of the writing, we all realized that peer to peer reading sometimes works beyond the construct of error. The real question was, “How can we use this to our advantage as readers of student writing?” According to the students in the circle, we might read more globally, help our peers with the formation of ideas, and discuss error in a low-stakes environment so that peer writing groups can create a better sense of collaboration and trust.

A Public Service Announcement

This semester I decided to have students post all of their work publicly somewhere in the digital world. I had been moving in this direction for a couple of years, but spent much worry over issues of sensitivity, privacy, and exposure. The writing class can be a place of egos, a place where confidence and insecurity often settle into dullness. This tepid situation is worsened by students’ attempt to give the teachers what they “want.” Is the problem one of rhetors or one of audiences? I blame both sides.

The one-on-one relationship that characterizes the traditional scenario of individual submission to the individual grader is often seen by the student as a battle of wills or, literally, as “submission.” Students often submit the digital essay to the plagiarism-checking software or to the teacher’s personal dropbox. The student doesn’t simply turn in her writing; she turns it over to the power of a machine or another human. This mindset is far from the instructor’s goals for the writer or the course (I think). We often boast of empowering and authorizing student writers, but is that really the case when students turn it in, submit it, or drop it into a digital space that is hidden from their view? Or do students give in to preconceived notions of the teacher’s desires or the perceived criteria of past successes (e.g. what got them the grade)? I know that sometimes they just give up. Is that what we mean when we ask them to “submit” their papers?

I decided to answer these questions with an opportunity to publish. My hopes for this public participation in discourse are partly influenced by the theoretical writings about “publics” (see Michael Warner’s work for provocative discussion about multiple publics). The prevalence of digital literacy, from gaming to social media to texting, suggests that our students are hyper-aware of the ways their discourse exists in these various publics. To ask them to go public is to allow them to continue their practices. For many of us, students and teachers alike, awareness of our publics is second nature. If not, it can’t be hard to awaken.

Assignments can be publics. The collaborative space of a wiki site charts and maps the creative history of a public (click the “history” button to see this intriguing record). A blog post may reflect its public in more mysterious ways, but every time the author answers reader’s comments or views the blog stats, an awareness of the public emerges. I view these activities as awakenings. Students may find social and academic awareness through their writing that contrasts sharply to the act of submitting the writing to the teacher. What are the implications of this difference? That is a research question we need to pose to our students.