I started out with the article, which gave a refreshing outlook on remixing and its various modes. The first mode of “remix” that came to mind were collages. I recently started making some during quarantine using some of LIFE Magazine’s most famous photos and, when I started making them more frequently, it started bothering me that I was using other people’s work. Afterwards, I decided to pick up my own camera and use my own photos to make my own collages. Looking back, I wonder why it bothered me so much to use someone else’s work to make it my own? I think, possibly, because those photos were so famous and the stories that came with them were as well, it made me feel bad about tearing that apart. I also think I was craving to be ~original~ and stand out from other types of collages I’ve seen, but remixing made it feel less like that.
Now, I’m less concerned with these things because I will pick up any photo from anywhere and I guess I’ve just learned to be comfortable and more concerned with the story and approach I’d like to focus on.
It’s interesting that the Brannon article discussed a similar idea to remixing, but in a classroom setting. They claim that, in that sense, it’s a form of appropriation. Teachers are quick to take authority over a student’s work, without the student’s consent, due to the built-in hierarchical teacher-student relationship in the classroom.
While, yes, it typically is true and almost inevitable, I think it’s harder to deconstruct that issue than Brannon makes it out to be. They suggest asking the writer & the reader the same three questions to ignite discussion, which will lead to revision. I do agree that intention and revision should be the focal point in reviewing student’s works, but it’s never that linear.
We’ve discussed the setbacks and resolutions of these issues and it typically comes back to the teacher’s lack of time to commit to one-on-one conferences for every student, or the lack of genuine interest in peer editing. In a perfect world, yes, these are solutions that would alleviate the problem. But, as we’ve stated briefly before, it’s time consuming and can seem unrealistic. This is probably why it’s unapproachable and hard to convince teachers to entirely adopt these methods.
However, on a lighter note, here is my #IAmFrom piece from last week!
Linked are my reaction paper and my presentation for my discussion lead topic, feedback and creativity in student writing. I look forward to presenting!
Thoughts On “How Remix Culture Informs Student Writing & Creativity” by Antero Garcia
I found Antero Garcia’s article on remixing really interesting because I’ve always had mixed feelings about remixing in terms of authenticity and quality, and this text suggested a new way of looking at remixing, and also helped me figure out the reason for some of my hesitancy towards it. It also provided, in my opinion, a great definition of remixing (“the process of making something new from preexisting materials”) which I don’t know if I’ve ever seen stated so simply, yet effectively.
First off, I had never really considered fanfiction as a form of remixing, and after reading this article, I think that’s because I see a very distinct line between fanfiction and other forms of remixing, such as with music or retellings of classic literature, and that line is profit. Fanfiction holds a special place in my heart because the fanfiction community is drawn together by their shared love of something. They dedicated hours of their lives writing and reading stories based on their favorite characters for the pure fun of it. No one is in it for the money, because there isn’t any money in fanfiction writing. In a way, fanfiction is remixing in its purest form, because no one is doing it for profit.
But those exceptions are where I start to have mixed feelings about remixing, because that’s where the line between fanfiction and “real” fiction gets blurry. There are, of course, a few exceptions where fanfiction becomes “real” literature and turns a profit, such as Fifty Shades of Gray, which was originally Twilight fanfiction. But since this example in particular is so fraught with issues (poor writing, a dangerously inaccurate portrayal of the BDSM lifestyle and what consent should look like, a source material that romanticizes abusive teenage relationships, etc.), it should raise questions of authorial authenticity and what makes quality literature. But instead, it became hugely popular and led to an equally questionable movie franchise.
What it comes down to is this: I think people who create remixes assume that the general public is smart enough to recognize a remix and judge it on its own merit, but unfortunately, I’ve encountered way too many people who prove this isn’t true. For example, here’s an argument I had with my cousin Nicole’s aunt Toni last year, when we were brainstorming possible names for Nicole’s unborn baby girl. It went something like this:
Toni: I think you should name the baby Ophelia.
Me: You want Nicole to name her baby after a Shakespearean character who literally goes insane and then drowns herself?
Toni: No, she took a potion so it only looked like she drowned herself, but she was still alive.
Me: Are you confusing Ophelia with Juliet?
Toni: No! Ophelia drinks the poison and pretends to drown, and then escapes the castle and runs away and gives birth to Hamlet’s baby.
(At this point I start gaslighting myself, thinking Have I somehow misunderstood the entire plot of Hamlet?)
Me: That is not what happens at the end of Hamlet. Ophelia is dead. Almost everyone is dead.
Toni: No, you’re wrong! That’s how it happened in the show!
Me: Wait, what show?
Toni: Ophelia! On Nexflix!
Me: Have you…ever actually read Hamlet?
Toni: No, I just watched it on Netflix.
Me:
After I explained the actual plot of Hamlet, and that the Netflix show Ophelia is a reimagining of what could have happened in Hamlet (but very much did not), Toni said, “Well, they shouldn’t be able to do that. It should be illegal to change it and not tell anyone.” I told her the producers at Netflix probably assumed the general public was smart enough to realize it was a reimagining, and not just a movie version of the original. She obviously didn’t like the insinuation I made. (This was a proud moment for me because I’ve disliked her for years. She starts tons of unnecessary family drama and she’s the kind of person who never admits she’s wrong. It felt good to knock her down a peg in front of the whole family, and if that makes me a bad person, so be it.)
I want to clarify that personally, I love remixes. I’ll read any modern-day adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that I can get my hands on. Retellings of fairy tales like CinderellaIs Dead or Cinder are always on my TBR list. And I’ve seen some great student projects based on remixes, like a class of my 10th graders one year who, after reading Othello, filmed “modern” versions of specific scenes, including one that was a spoof of The Office and another that included gender-bending the main characters. Students love coming up with alternate or extended endings to the books we read, or rewriting scenes from a different character’s point of view.
I guess what it really comes down to in the end is that Garcia’s article helped me finally realize that it isn’t the remixes themselves that I have a problem with. Rather, my issue lies with people who cannot consume remixes responsibly. When it comes to our students, I think teachers do a great job of incorporating remixing into our writing curriculum, and I think the younger generation actually has a pretty firm grasp on remixes as a genre. It’s the adult population who needs a refresher course of Remixing 101.
Thoughts On“On Students’ Rights to Their Own Texts: A Model of Teacher Response” by Lil Brannon and C. H. Knoblauch
While I can certainly appreciate the point that Brannon and Knoblauch are making in this essay, I think it fell short because they didn’t offer enough viable solutions to the problem they identified. Their main argument is that in order for students to think their writing is being taken seriously and to give them the incentive to keep improving, teachers should focus more on how/if the students met their own writing goals, as opposed to the assignment set out by the teacher. It’s an interesting approach, but in today’s day and age, there’s more cons to this method than pros.
Pros
Multi-draft writing opportunities – I do agree that more teachers should be using this method. This approach is the difference between being a writing instructor vs. a writing coach. An instructor just grades a single draft and is done with it; a coach offers feedback and opportunity for improvement.
The suggestions for the types of questions a teacher can ask to help students realize where their work falls short are a good strategy.
Cons
The authors suggest there is a “middle ground” between the conservative and liberal approaches to teachers grading writing that they describe, but they don’t do a good enough job of defining what that middle ground actually looks like.
Poor examples – The authors use a sample student “essay” to illustrate their point, but I wouldn’t consider that an essay by today’s standards. Writing from the p.o.v. of the prosecutor would be more of a creative writing assignment, not an essay. This brings us to the next con…
Written almost 50 years ago, the scenarios described here aren’t all applicable to a modern-day English class. Teachers are required to use detailed rubrics to grade student work. Failure to provide a rubric can result in low observation scores, as well as battles with parents and students over grading. Allowing the kind of writing described here, where students rather than teachers decide on the parameters of their writing, is a logistical nightmare, especially if students also become responsible for creating their own individual rubrics.
Too many questions are left unanswered. How many drafts do you allow students to write? How do you grade a final submission that still fails to meet state standards and teacher expectations? And finally, since evaluation should only occur “after [the student has] decided that their writing is finished and ready to be evaluated,” what happens if a student never gets to that point? The confines of modern-day grading periods are simply not conducive to such a lengthy, potentially endless writing timeline.
Another insightful and enjoyable read. It’s one of those topics yet again that is obvious and true, something we may already probably know but tend to forget about; yet alone think much about. The passage brought up good points that I took note of and highlighted. Some ideas that stood out to me the most were:
Corrections: teachers show the discrepancy between what the writing has actually achieved and what the ideal writing should look like.
This also tends to show that the teachers agenda is more important than their (students) own.
This made me think, are teachers ultimately bias at the end of the day? Maybe but also maybe not. Teachers do have a protocol and a model set up for them on what they need to do with their students. But those models never tell them how to read or approach a students work when it comes to reading their paper. It’s impossible, that program never read that paper. When a teacher is reading the paper, how can it not come off bias in regards to what the paper should be like and the way the student should have written it. Maybe I am only speaking from personal experience and using an umbrella to describe all teachers is hurtful and insensitive. But for me, my teachers also kind of paved the way and really structure and made constructive criticism on my work that it basically became their paper in the end, rather than mines.
This reading helped me realize a few things as to why I probably for one, never use to like school. But it also makes clear sense as to why students should have their own text. They are the student, they are the ones who are learning and evolving. Shouldn’t they be the ones too do things a little bit their way too?
Another insightful and enjoyable read. It’s one of those topics yet again that is obvious and true, something we may already probably know but tend to forget about; yet alone think much about. The passage brought up good points that I took note of and highlighted. Some ideas that stood out to me the most were:
Corrections: teachers show the discrepancy between what the writing has actually achieved and what the ideal writing should look like.
This also tends to show that the teachers agenda is more important than their (students) own.
This made me think, are teachers ultimately bias at the end of the day? Maybe but also maybe not. Teachers do have a protocol and a model set up for them on what they need to do with their students. But those models never tell them how to read or approach a students work when it comes to reading their paper. It’s impossible, that program never read that paper. When a teacher is reading the paper, how can it not come off bias in regards to what the paper should be like and the way the student should have written it. Maybe I am only speaking from personal experience and using an umbrella to describe all teachers is hurtful and insensitive. But for me, my teachers also kind of paved the way and really structure and made constructive criticism on my work that it basically became their paper in the end, rather than mines.
This reading helped me realize a few things as to why I probably for one, never use to like school. But it also makes clear sense as to why students should have their own text. They are the student, they are the ones who are learning and evolving. Shouldn’t they be the ones too do things a little bit their way too?
It is really interesting how the projects have lined up. So far, all of the presentations that happen on the same night appear to go together and I would say the same for these.
There is a form of erasure in both, things left unsaid, unheard. The works show this and tackle this in very different ways, but still seem to connect here.
I really enjoyed the way the author interacts with the reader of “A Kiss,” it is not just a story but a conversation which is very interesting and makes it in engaging in a completely different way than we have seen with the other hypertext pieces that have been shared. It adds interaction on a mental level layering that on top of the physical interaction of the piece.
“The Infinite Woman” is extremely intriguing to me on a feministic level and thinking about gender roles and the way women “perform” in society. Adding the fact that all of that is wrapped up into a creation of your own poem and the erasure effect…wow. A lot to unpack and I am really excited to see the conversation that flows from that.
Both pieces are incredibly beautiful in a myriad of ways and in very complex and different ways. I look forward to seeing the presentations and conversations that will be conducted.
I was actually excited to read this piece. I thought this was going to be some sort of guide on how to discover and develop ones voice as a writer. I was a little disappointed to find out that was not the case. Personally, I was never really sure if I had a distinct writing voice. I never saw my writing as something that stood out or gave light to who I was as a person, but maybe that is something for the reader to decide and not me. Elbows piece goes on to discuss the arguments around writing in voice and how it is not exactly talked about as much anymore.
What I found interesting and useful was the “Reasons for Attending to Voice in Texts” section. It made me think about my students in my own classroom. Elbow says, “With practice, people can learn to write prose that ‘has a voice’ or ‘sounds like a person’, and , interestingly, when they do, their language-or when we hear a difficult text read aloud well- we don`t have to work so hard to understand the meaning”(176). My students always ask for me to do the class reading aloud or sometimes to even listen to an audio of what are we reading that day. I thought they preferred this because they just wanted to be lazy, but maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s genuinely easier for some of them to grasp the meaning by hearing a voice read it aloud.
Funny how I described the first time I considered myself a writer by recalling the realization that I had a “voice”. It’s such a blanket term, and Elbow points that out right away. I always considered it to be a stylistic thing but, in reality, there are so many different factors that make up a writer’s voice it’s nearly impossible to put our finger on one.
Because we fail to do that, it makes the voice a individualistic concept and I guess that’s where the argument stems from. I think it also has to do with the term “voice” itself. I mean everyone’s literal voice is so unique and personal to themselves and it’s something we can’t replicate, as hard as we try. So when I said I considered myself a writer once I found my voice, it really meant that I felt like I was writing on my own terms in a way that I felt like I owned my words, the same way I own my voice.
When talking about voice in writing, however, Elbow’s argument essentially states the necessity of voice in writing depends on the outcome you want of the reader. So, he mostly discusses it in a teaching concept, which is why he seems to point more towards the reduction of voice at times. It makes sense. If you want to teach writing, you wouldn’t want the student to indulge in their voice because it usually makes it to personal & takes away from the main objective of the writing.
But, what about creative writing? How much voice is too much? My guess is this would be less restrictive, but there is inevitably a point where too much is too much. Maybe it depends on the genre, but I think even a memoir can be hurt by too much voice. Elbow mentions persona/implied author and how the two are easily mistaken for one another, but it’s “character in the text and character in the author” (183). So, in a creative writing context, I believe the meshing of the two is a clear indicator the writer may have gone too far with the voice in their writing.
Also, Elbow uses the example of instructing his students to read Shakespeare aloud until they feel the meaning. This is where voice is helpful because sounds are more familiar than ye old English and less daunting. It can even be fun because of how ridiculous it sounds to us now. When a student puts themselves in those shoes, they become looser & less focused on what the unfamiliar words are because they feel the power in their pronunciations.
With this example, I realized that teaching writing reduces the importance of voice, while teaching reading amplifies its importance. It seems like this is why Elbow refuses to choose one side over the other. They have to go hand in hand. What is writing without reading and vise versa? What is understanding a meaning without feeling it?
This week’s reading of “Voice in Writing Again: Embracing Contraries” was one of our most intriguing so far, in my opinion. I enjoy Peter Elbow’s work, but I will admit that at first, I wasn’t a fan of this reading. I guess that I was expecting Elbow to dive into a discussion of voice right from the very beginning of the essay, but in actuality, most of the first few pages were concerned not with voice in itself but with how Elbow was going discuss voice. He spoke a bit about the previous arguments that had occurred in the field regarding voice (arguments which surprised me; I never knew that people doubted the concept of voice in writing when it was something I was so used to believing), but mostly he talked about the ways in which people argue, how they work in a “zero-sum model” where only one side can be right and the other, therefore, must be wrong. He argues that this is the wrong approach to take with discussing voice, that there needs to be some sort of compromise, a “both/and” approach instead of an “either/or” one.” This is all well and good, but I felt like it was just overly theoretical and not really about voice, and I expected the rest of the paper to run along the same lines, leaving me frustrated and not very eager to keep going. However, at the bottom of page 174, Elbow states “in this essay, I will try to show that we can affirm the validity of both conflicting positions–even in their contradiction,” and from here, the rest of the essay really does deal with the issue of voice in writing, and I became much more interested!
At first, I was unable to see the benefits of what Elbow calls the “pure text lens,” i.e the way of viewing writing that completely disregards any voice. Elbow says that the text lens “foregrounds language as an abstract system…in which words have the same meaning whoever utters them in whatever context…” I initially chafed against this idea, because words do mean different things in different contexts. Elbow claimed that the pure text lens shows a “naked meaning dimension” that is present in discourse and that both lenses (voice and text) are of benefit to us, but I still was not able to understand the benefit of the text lens by this point in the essay. The voice lens already felt abundantly clear to me, but the points that Elbow made helped to cement its importance in my brain.
I found it very interesting how text with a clear voice (that sounds like a person) carries meaning more clearly. I also appreciate his statement that when students read their work aloud, they are more likely to be able to write sentences that are “inviting and comfortable” to speak aloud, in turn making those sentences better for even silent reading. I’ve heard a lot of benefits about reading one’s work aloud, and I think it’s something I do have to start doing even though I despise hearing my creative work read aloud. I was also interested in the fact that one can learn to analyze voice by reading not only their own drafts aloud but also the work of others in something called “ear training.” Elbow made a lot of points about the benefits of voice but these were some of the ones that really stood out to me.
And now for the argument against paying attention to voice in writing, i.e looking through the text lens. Before these examples, I really was unable to think of the ways that a pure text lens would be useful. Once Elbow started giving the examples, however, I quickly changed my mind and was able to see a lot of use. For one, he states that ignoring voice can help one to read critically, as voice “often functions like a persuasive courtroom lawyer” and can distract readers from the logic of an argument. By looking through a text lens, one can cut through the rhetoric and see the flaws in a writer’s thinking/argument. Also, if teachers put too much focus on voice, students might think that good writing only requires a strong voice, which is not the case.
Probably one of the most interesting uses of the text lens is working out multiple meanings in a work. Elbow believes that when you hear the actual performance of a work, such as a Shakespeare play, the meaning that work focuses on becomes cemented in your mind. However, if you are reading a work, the silent text invites many interpretations. If students are trained not to rely on voice when reading, they will be able to separate language and thought from the author and “read against the grain” (i.e read against the voice) and find their own meanings in a text.
After reading Elbow’s essay, I can see the benefits of reading both with and without a focus on the voice. Of course, I’m still a big fan of voice and think it can do wonders for writing (especially when storytelling), but now I can see the uses of a purely textual lens as well.
I (wrongly) assumed that Elbow’s “Voice in Writing Again: Embracing Contraries” would be about strategies for developing your own voice in writing, or maybe even strategies for teaching voice development to students. So, I was surprised to find that it started by questioning whether or not we should even focus on voice at all.
Elbow makes a convincing argument for his both/and approach to voice, and I found myself agreeing with some of his points, especially when it comes to creating an “authentic voice.” The comparison he makes to online writing is true: it’s very easy to create a voice for the person you want to be seen as, but that’s not necessarily the same as the person you are. I also liked his proposal of a “compromise” between the pro-voice/anti-voice scholars, where we accept that voice should be analyzed with the understanding that it might not reflect the true character of its author, and where we attempt to analyze writing through the two different lenses of text and voice, thereby focusing on two different possible interpretations of the writing.
The parts of this piece that resonated with me the most were the parts that focused on student writing and voice. Elbow makes some great observations that definitely ring true in the classroom. First, he points out that students who write with a problematic voice are more likely to reveal other weaknesses in their writing. As someone who as graded her fair share of unsuccessful writing, this is definitely true. And I think the reasons it’s true is directly related to another point he makes, that “some of the most ineffective and even tangled student writing comes from trying too hard to avoid a ‘regular voice’.” At some point in their academic career, someone led these kids to the incorrect assumption that ALL of the writing they do for school MUST sound academic. (I hope this person steps on Legos.) As a result, some students try so hard to sound “professional” that their writing becomes nonsensical because they litter it with unnecessary (and often incorrectly used) synonyms, or they blather on and repeat themselves in cyclical arguments when they could’ve easily said what they needed to say in one or two sentences. It also makes it difficult for them to write anything non-academic, whether creative or personal. Any time I teach a “fun” English elective like creative writing or journalism, I feel like I need to tell the students to forget every rule about writing they’ve ever learned in an English class before. And every September, when my students from last year ask if I’ll give them feedback on their college essay, my number one comment is always that they’re trying to sound too academic, so their essay sounds stuffy, and impersonal, and not at all like them.
Finally, I think the section of this piece that focused on reasons to not attend to voice in text had some good points, but I think it would’ve been better if Elbow had spent more time differentiating between times when writers should focus on developing voice in their writing, and times when voice should take a backseat instead. He briefly touches on this when he mentions how scientific writing is often purposely impersonal, but I would’ve liked to see a more concrete breakdown of types of writing where it’s more appropriate to develop voice versus types where doing so may actually be detrimental to the writing.
When it comes down to it, I think Elbow raised more questions than he answered in this piece, but it certainly gave me some things to think about.
