#11 - Gee and curriculum design

A few of the principles I consider "core" in the composition classroom (from Gee):

4) Semiotic Domains Principle

Leaning involves mastering, at some level, semiotic domains, and being able to participate, at some level, in the affinity group or groups connected to them.

5) Meta-level thinking about Semiotic Domain Principle
Learning involves active and critical thinking about the relationships of the semiotic domain being learned to other semiotic domains

6) "Psychosocial Moratorium" Principle
Learners can take risks in a space where real-world consequences are lowered

14) "Regime of Competence" Principle
The learner gets ample opportunity to operate within, but at the outer edge of, his or her resources, so that at those points things are felt as challenging but not "Undoable"

I could list more, but if I had to narrow my classroom design down to only a few "core" principles, these are the ones I'll stick with for now. Let me explain how I see this working:

The most important principle that I can see in the composition classroom is #14, the "Regime of Competence" principle. Students will get bored if asked to do things that are too easy or rote, and will usually lose interest in both the activities and the classroom (consequently leading to failure or lowered performance when they could easily achieve higher marks); conversely, students will collapse in frustration if what they're being asked to do is too far outside their abilities (I call this insufficient preparation). Now, as teachers (or future teachers) we know this already. What this principle asks us to do is to take this knowledge into account when we design activity sequences, and writing sequences, so that each one pushes students "to the next level," rather than fulfilling a few unrelated genres (for example, the "reflective" hand-turkey paper). With this principle, each paper in a writing sequence teaches students a skill they'll need in the next paper--such as a paper focused on critical analysis of sources so that students become familiar with working with sources, which they'll need for the next paper which (among new tasks) asks them to work with a number of sources.

The second core principle is #6, the "Psychosocial Moratorium" principle. In an earlier post on the Angel discussion board, I referred to this as the "newbie zone" (a place where students/players can learn the rules of a system in a safe environment). Of course, the portfolio grading system is an example of this principle, but I think that this also applies to other class assignments and activities. For example, grading students on the quality of online discussion posts before they've learned the genre violates the "newbie zone." For similar things (I don't use online discussion posts), I grade each activity on only a few criteria that I feel students are capable of (though they may find it challenging). However, the principle of the "newbie zone" is that once they've learned the rules, they need to get out into the "real world;" the "newbie zone" should only apply to the new skills they are learning. A video game example would be the first 20 levels or so of World of Warcraft, where even after players leave the official "starter area," they continue to play in an expanded "newbie zone" that incrementally tests their new skills and knowledge, and introduces them to new skills and challenges only when they're ready.


The third and fourth principles are actually only one principle to me. In order for students to begin to write for academia, they have to realize that academic writing is not a single genre, but a convoluted mess of different discourses all taking place within incrementally isolating communities (for example, Humanities->English->Literature->20th Century->Postmodern Analysis). However, as I know many of you are about to point out, there are many similarities between literary postmodern-analysis and different fields of rhetoric, history, women's studies, and comparative ethnic studies--to name a few; that's where principle #5 comes into play for Gee, and for me is just the flip side of these two (one) principles. In other words, students must recognize that academic writing is conducted within a semiotic domain that's isolated into a small community, but that these semiotic domains also "talk to each other," and otherwise borrow, steal, or influence each other. What they need to discover is what we already know: scholars are fish who swim in many different lakes and streams.

"OK, I will witness the disaster." (best comeback ever)

So, I was unable to meet for even a disasterous, non-physically-spaced, online class discussion due to a dead car battery. I'm not going to go into details, but I literally had no other choice than to get the problem fixed immediately.

That said, I got a recap from several of you, and having read over the transcript I have a few observations to make that are directly related to the questions Kristen has posed to us:

• Online, synchronous discussions are incredibly language- and socially-biased. They are definitely semiotic domains (Gee) that follow a rule system that will be quite familiar to insiders and perhaps very shocking, or at least a bit off-putting, to outsiders. This rule system is quite different from those that govern other forms of written speech and other situated speaking speech; manners and politeness follow different norms, behavioral expectations are quite different, and the whole notion of turn-taking (nevermind limiting conversations to one topic) gets blasted to hell.
• They are often merciless to non-native speakers/writers of the discussion's primary language. Online discussions often require reading massive amounts of text in a short period of time, and while non-native speakers may be used to this with spoken speech, it's quite likely that they have not often encountered it before with written, synchronous discussion. Also, the subtleties of language (accompanied body language, tonal inflections, speech elongation/shortening, etc.) that are so abundant with spoken speech are completely missing from written speech, thus providing even fewer clues and context for non-native speakers. The emoticon just isn't enough :/
• Anna's (and Jill's) points about silence are thought provoking. While it might be clear in the transcript--who participated, who didn't, and at what times, etc.--it's usually not something one can easily be aware of. At least in classroom discussion, people talk slow enough and usually one-at-a-time, so one can take a moment to consider who hasn't spoken and who has, who's falling asleep and who's leaning on the edge of their seat (waiting for their turn to talk).
• What I enjoyed most (from the transcript) was the multiple attempts, by multiple participants, to allow someone to focus the conversation on one question or topic--followed immediately by the failure of most of these same participants to do so. It's sort of like everyone in a bumper-car rally trying to stop and work together without purposely ramming anyone else. What frustrated me (to the extent I could be frustrated by a transcript) is all the side comments, jabs, comebacks, non-sequiturs, jokes, statements of agreement, and descriptive language that we would all be terribly ashamed of inside the classroom (at least when it reaches this extent and derails the conversation so thoroughly). Had I been there, I probably would have been quite silent (I tend to behave antithetically to how the group is behaving; if everyone's quiet, I talk a lot, if everyone's talking, I shut up and listen closely).

I've seen these discussions before, in many classrooms (though not as an instructor), and the only real difference between this one and others I've seen is that, since everyone's full (real) name appears next to every post, the Greater Internet Dickwad Theory was not at play here. For those who are still unaware of this phenomenon, I'll link the relevant diagram below:

Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Dickwad

Thankfully, I think the interface removes that one key component: anonymity; however, it should be noted that anonymity is only an amplifier. Anyway, I certainly won't be using synchronous online discussions as an instructor--for all their problems, where's the benefit?