from VCCA Journal, Volume 8, Number 2, Fall/Winter 1993, 38-43
© Copyright 1993 VCCA Journal
How might writing teachers use other media to enhance students' understanding of writing nonfiction? How can we use a means of communication students are very familiar with, video, as a way of connecting them to written, nonfiction discourse and make what may seem dull and archaic--writing and reading nonfiction--more stimulating?
Background
In the fall semester of 1990, students in my freshman composition class at a suburban community college collaborated in small groups to complete research projects of their own choosing. Drawing on skills learned throughout the semester, group members conducted their own research and compiled a set of summaries on their common topic. The primary objective of this activity was to have students experience the process of sharing ideas, exchanging findings, and agreeing on conclusions. The secondary objective was to have the students experience the reporting of a groups' discussions and present a common list of the works cited. Why did I decide to emphasize the process rather than the product?
In traditional freshman composition texts (for example, The Saint Martin's Guide to Writing or The Riverside Guide to Writing), the teaching strategies offered are models for emulation, often in the form of exemplary student writings. Even when textbooks consider the research activity as process (such as in the texts noted above), students are guided in road map fashion through incremental stages toward a final product: they are exhorted to choose a topic, take a simulated trip around library resources, record notes (on note cards with graphics provided), and be adept at MLA citation. Although intended as a description of process (a model, still), students read "prescription"; thus, guidelines are translated into rules to follow unthinkingly rather than treated as a process to develop thoughtfully. Given the circumstance that traditionally the text and teacher have been the powerful and authoritative centers of the classroom, how could students not give up their own authority and their own capacity to think critically? But what if students were enabled to become the authoritative voices in the classroom? How would their becoming the initiators of ideas and the active agents of their inventions transform the process of inquiry and the medium and method of reporting from informed sources? If released from the tyranny of the textbook, how would students go about producing nonfiction? More about the answers to these questions later; for now, let me explain why I reject the ubiquitous textbook rhetoric found in English composition classes.
In assigning the required research component for the first semester of English composition, my rationale for discarding a traditional text came from a recollection of student samples of many semesters past--short, dull and hackneyed affairs. In most cases, the writing is rushed and perfunctory owing to a compression of time in the overall schedule. Indeed the writing skills required are varied and sophisticated and include summarizing, paraphrasing, using quotation format, citing sources in accepted format. In addition, more subtle considerations arise. Students ask, "When are summary and paraphrase more appropriate than direct quotation?" "How much may I quote?" "Are there ways to edit quotes to accommodate in a natural way my own commentary?" "What's the purpose of citation?" "What? You mean I have to acknowledge ideas from my sources as well as direct quotes?" "How do I present what I've researched together with what I think about the information I've gathered?" "What's a bibliography for?" "Why does a bibliography takes that form, a hanging indentation?"
These are valid concerns which arise naturally as students prepare to write. But consider the time usually allotted for these activities. Before sitting down to practice these various skills, students struggle to create a topic or replay the oldies but goodies from high school; then they do lots of legwork in the Learning Resource Center (LRC)--a mini project of its own. No wonder that when students finally sit down to write, they are exhausted by their information gathering with little energy to devote to the process of reporting. Or students are bored with the same old research-paper tune and do a perfunctory job. No wonder teachers are frustrated with the results: canned papers purchased from purveyors; pastiches of quotes (the cut and paste variety); awkward and unclear selection and formatting of quotations; reporting solely, in the place of taking a position or offering reasoned discussion or analyzing or forecasting solutions.
Intent on avoiding these pitfalls, I decided to revise the required research segment in English 111 so that process would take precedence over product. By so doing, students would be encouraged to bring all their language skills to bear, skills such as reading, writing, speaking, and listening. I created the following plan: from the initial weeks of the semester to midterm, students were assigned essays from the textbook mandated college-wide. They summarized and paraphrased the various essays and reinforced these skills by sharing drafts with peers. They were encouraged to use citation format in their initial writings. Soon we moved on to enhancing the presentation of secondary sources with the primary sources of personal reflection, reaction, and extended discussion, that is "talking back to the text."
When the time approached for the mandated research segment on the college-wide course outline, students were competent enough to read and report on a text to an audience of their peers, and having achieved a firm background in skills, they were ready to proceed.
Students worked in groups of four or five persons who had already established rapport in their intermittent group work throughout the semester. As an autonomous group, members established their own structure for working; their first task was to select a topic. Then, group members were instructed to find at least three sources from the various resources at the LRC, using Pro Quest mainly. Each group member was responsible for summarizing (with citations) three articles and appending a paragraph of reaction. At a specified date, the groups met in class to share findings. The rationale was to emphasize the process of reading, then interpreting and reacting to sources for an audience of peers. The visible outcome was a group report which evaluated both what they had learned and the group process involved. Documentation for the group was achieved through the groups' pooling of their sources, formatted as a bibliography. Although these basic objectives would be sufficient to fulfill the project, I suggested that groups were free to create their own form of reporting, free to stretch their imaginations.
The Video
What came about was an unanticipated outcome greatly enjoyed. Once free to create their own nonfiction, one group of students turned to the familiar methods of the mass media. They decided to create a video centering on their topic of censorship in music, a hot issue at that time owing to the 2 Live Crew trial. They completed their video project in three weeks' time, allowing us the space to view and critique the final product. Each group member made a contribution to the production which emulated a comfortably familiar genre, the in-depth report segment typical of the Six O'clock News.
The production features two narrators, male and female, who walk us through a brief history of censorship of music in their hometown, Richmond. The 2 Live Crew controversy is paralleled with other issues of censorship in pop music history. We begin with film clips of Elvis, then are swiftly transported to an on-the-scene dialogue between the narrators at Richmond's performance center, The Mosque, where the Beatles once performed. There a man on the street (a hip VCU student) is solicited for an opinion. With an additional clip, the narrators remind us of the clever ways some performers avoided censorship: Jimmy Buffet, for instance, had the audience sing along his questionable lyrics to create complicity.
We travel on to a nearby park near a duck pond where a middle-aged Virginia gentleman's jog is interrupted to sample his opinion. "Should young people have the right to choose their own music without interference?"
"Young people don't have the right to choose," blurts out the gentleman in unexpected pique.
Then the camera pans the duck pond for a longish time because that's the way the Six O'clock News fades out of a segment, they told me in answer to my inquiry about the meaning of the ducks. In fact, they had waited hours for the ducks to swim by to take that special shot. The scene then switches to the group of five seated around a picnic table where they discuss the issue presented, much like the small group pattern established in the classroom. Embarrassed at first, the group warms up to a discussion supporting First Amendment rights. The video ends with the woman narrator seated in her home in front of a sumptuous Christmas tree reading the "sources cited" page.
From the writing teacher's perspective, what is provocative about the student video is that the organization and employment of skills parallel what students learned as a process in writing. It was revealing that students had difficulty in describing the varied components of the bridge they had created from one medium to another by applying parallel skills. For example, how did they use quotation? To name the bits of film clips and the persons-on-the-street interviews as quotations was astonishing to them. Yet, in creating the script, they included ample introductions for each quote, followed by appropriate commentary, just as they had done in writing. They were careful to create a "works cited"segment as a conclusion because they were obeying authority rather than fully understanding why credit should be given for sources.
What does this seeming obtuseness mean? I interpret their lack of understanding in the face of their competence this way: students are expert at playing the game of learning models requested of them by authorities; they do so without thinking. Our models are couched in the language of our academic discourse, not theirs. The students who created the video half entered our community, but they did that half expertly. Nevertheless, they lacked the skills to be self critical and self reflective about their process. The trouble is that skills learned and employed in the classroom setting hold no meaning for them in other settings, the scenes of their daily lives. The tools we academics use, the language we use, the purpose and need for what we teach--however vital for them (we think)--does not touch them in a powerful way.
One group of five students, however, was vitally touched because they expressed themselves through video rather than writing and followed a pop culture format, the TV news, rather than a written article. Once they returned to the discourse of their own community, they could more easily communicate, yet they could not assess that communication afterwards.
In spite of the limited success of the cognitive aspects of their video project, students made real gains from the affective aspects of working together. For instance, the young woman narrator is an anxious speaker in class; she would begin speaking, but would become rattled midway, throwing up her hands in frustration, her thought trailing off. When assuming the persona of a news reporter, her demeanor changed to that of a confident and articulate speaker. That she could view her more assured self on the video would surely build her self-esteem. One group member is a shy and fairly unresponsive young man, mostly sleepy during this nine o'clock class. But once the video project began, his behavior visibly changed; he would bound into class with eyes open wide in anticipation of the day's work.
Bonding and commitment took place. Students met outside of class, filmed sequences on Sundays, and put their own money in the project. Such cooperation is especially noteworthy among community college students who do not have the ease of communication more often afforded at a residential college, nor have they the time enjoyed by the four-year college student.
Videos Essays and Writing
Because the students found it easier to communicate through a dynamic, visual medium rather than the traditional text does not prompt me to discard books in favor of camcorders. But I have been thinking about how I might employ video to help students understand aspects of their nonfiction writing by paralleling video with text.
Now that I had one student-produced videotext, I played the video to my next group of freshman writers in the fall of the following year, illustrating through this nonintimidating model the technical features necessary to write from sources in a clear and responsible way. Even the problems in the student-made video helped us to talk about writing. For example, students complained that they were confused by the video makers' technique of switching from one scene to another. Here was a good opportunity to reteach the concept and the skill of writing transitions.
Me: Don' t you recall the marginal notes on your previous papers? Remember? When you go from one phase of your topic to another, you need to cue your reader in, remind your reader by rephrasing the previous idea and making a connection to the new idea about to be discussed.
Them: [Looks of recognition.]
Me: Yes, you are right to be confused if you have no direction signals, just like you felt confused by the change of scenes in the video. But now you know what it feels like as the audience to grope for the signposts in the writing, to feel your way in a dark text.
Them: [Nods of understanding.]
There were some other lessons to be learned during the next semester. After seeing the original student video, students from each of my four sections of English 111 made plans to produce video essays. Only one project was completed, however, because I could provide neither camcorders nor ongoing technical support. But in spite of formidable technical obstacles, a group of three students completed a video on recycling, Recycle.
Recycle proved influential for one student in the spring 1992 semester. A student whose friend had produced and directed Recycle asked if he could draw on this video as a source for a paper he would write on recycling. This became a fine example of how students create and, at the same time, recreate the process of learning, teaching the instructor as well. Student-produced videos could serve as source materials for future English 111 essays. Wouldn't students be energized and engaged by student generated texts--especially videotexts--above traditional sources? And perhaps generations of students would themselves be prompted to contribute to a growing archive, and once more learn the techniques of composing a video essay with these accessible student models. Ah, how this instructor dreams on!
Nevertheless dreams can become realities, but considering the obstacles to the strategy, I did not want to assign a video essay unless I could provide responsible support. Thus, I've submitted a 1993-94 request to the Humanities Division to purchase a camcorder specifically designated for student use. This equipment would be available to other colleagues for their teaching purposes as well. Also, the media specialist at our college has agreed to train students to operate a camcorder and to answer questions during projects. I would begin by offering the idea of composing one paper as a videotext to all five sections of English 111. Interested students would form a collaborative group to write a proposal, stating the topic, sketching a plan of action, listing and locating sources and resources. The media specialist and I would select one among the submissions to be set into action as a pilot project, the one project we considered feasible and intellectually captivating.
In closing, let me review the student outcomes and teaching-learning objectives I envision for this project:
A classroom project to write nonfiction was taken up by students in surprising and fruitful ways. My thoughts have ranged from past reflection to present undertakings to future plans. Process has been esteemed above product; connections to students' experience have been prized over the academic setting. Equally prized, however, are the values of the traditional approaches, which might be communicated more effectively if we were, at first, to employ the media and modes of the student community as a bridge to invite them into our community.
Beverly-Lynne Aronowitz is an assistant professor at J Sargeant Reynolds Community College, Parham Road Campus, Richmond, Virginia.