Research...and where we see it in practice

I find the implications of two very different types of research to be intriguing.
First, Berlin, which we discussed in detail last Wednesday. As discussed in class, this piece was influential in the field of writing...with the following premise: "Ideology is here foregrounded and problematized in a way that situates rhetoric within ideology...This position means that any examination of a rhetoric must first consider the ways its very discursive structure can be read so as to favor one version of economic, social and political arrangements over other versions" (477)/.
His move to discuss ideologies of the following: cognitive rhetoric (incompletely, as we discussed in class), Expressionistic Rhetoric, (again, a somewhat limited conversation), and Social-Epistemic -- where he clearly places his stamp of approval. His discussion of language, observer, discourse community, historics and social conditions --places rhetoric (when understood in this light) in a epistemological light "This means that in studying rhetoric-the ways discourse is generated - we are studying the ways in which knowledge comes into existence" (489). His further discussion of Shor's empowering classroom, which challenges the traditional hierarchical classroom - in favor of the "complextity of the behavior recommended in the classroom, behavior that is always open-ended, receptive to the unexpected, and subversive of the planned" (492). The focus on the" liberated consciousness of the of students" is argued to be the highest goal. The piece becomes well-known in the field...and influential.
I have used much of this in my own classroom experiences (In a previous post,I wrote about my realization that I in naming my course "Empowerment through Writing", I was making assumptions that writing would empower...you wrote back with a series of titles. In fact, I was and still do use Malcolm X's passage, "Learning to Read", along with Sherman Alexie's "Indian Education" or "Superman and Me" -- even when I questioned my own assumptions for using these, I could not deny that the pieces resonated with students, so why not? I am moving towards a more complex understanding of my decisions to teach particular texts in a classroom -- and acknowledging complexity does not mean I have to throw the whole thing out.
As such, though the "liberated consciousness of the student" is a vague term at best...it can lead, as an ideology, to some interesting literary/ composition exercises in that, in my experience, it often provides a CONTEXT for students to write. A reason -- found not in the cues of the instructor as explored by Smith and Combs, but within the writers themselves. But it is difficult to explain what this looks like...and interpretations of this classroom are many. It is, after all, an ideology. So what does that mean for the teaching of writing? How did this impact the teaching of writing (as we discussed, it did)?

Here is where the juxtaposition of the Smith and Combs with Berlin is quite interesting to me. I began Smith and Combs without much interest. Sentence combining and T-stops seemed profoundly uninspiring after the sweeping vision of Berlin. Yet, I do teach a day of sentence combining techniques, along with some other overt lessons in word choice, usage, conventions.
Smith and Combs pushed me to consider exactly WHAT I was doing when I did this...and how students respond to it. Why did some students continue to use words throughout the semester I had explicitly told them to avoid ("thing, a lot, really")? This nitty, gritty level of looking at what is going on both in the lesson and the ways in which students are thinking about the lesson are something that deserves attention. Smith and Combs were able (as I responded to Megan's post) to, however tentatively, (Sentence Combining must have been quite entrenched at the time) suggest that a widely held practice may not quite be what it seems. I have some issues with the Smith and Combs (as articulated in my response to Megan's post) -- but I find fascinating that Smith and Combs get at decisions made by the writer in response to the covert moves of the instructor. For the most part, I will buy the method, the representation and the documentation of the Smith and Combs article. Of course, our class discussion on Monday may very well complicate this.

* Note - I was able to make it to the other Berlin article you gave to me (do you need it back?) - the last paragraph "Teachers must emphasize the oppositional nature of their work as researchers, questioning the forces that would make them technicians in the reproduction of an exploited social order" is explosive...and I look forward to pursuing the rest of the Daiker/Morenberg book you lent me (thanks for that)...as well to trace research beyond these texts. These situate me in what I was "feeling" but not finding words for -- that I had been working with students, literacy and social situations that were all playing off of each other in meaningful ways (I have done some research on Elizabeth Moje's work with literacies as embedded in adolescent's lives -- and look forward to more of that exploration). So thanks!