Writing is hard . . .

so I won't give you anything to read as you finish up your draft for this week.  Instead, here's something to watch. Warning:  possibly offensive language used.

Writing about Plato (part 2)

This week, I’m working with these steps of breaking down and using source material.

I ended with this last time:

In the Phaedrus, Plato explains the invention of writing through a dialogue between Theuth, the inventor, and Thamus, the king who is skeptical of writing.  One aspect of this criticism is that people who use written letters “will be hearers of many things . . .[but they] will have learned nothing” (Jowett 1).

The passage tells my reader exactly where--out of all the possible texts in the world--my thinking is starting: Plato, the Phaedrus, the story of the invention of writing, the specific part where he talks about hearing and learning.

In many ways the most difficult part of incorporating sources is setting up the idea so that a reader knows where your thinking is starting--that comes in steps 1 and 3.   Once you’ve done that set up thoroughly, your interpretation of the source and your own ideas take center stage. The steps  sort of happen all at once: Obviously, you need to do some thinking about what the passage MEANS, before you can make decisions about what to quote.

1. What does a reader need to know before you can talk about the passage? (framing and context)

2. What does it mean? (explaining or digesting)

3. What do I really NEED to quote from this passage? (Editing, chopping, incorporating the words into a sentence of your own)

4. What is important about this quotation? (Extend the idea.  Use the idea.  Show how it fits with your argument. Blend.)

I’m going to focus here on parts 2 and 4:  What does the passage mean and what does it means for my argument. It is key to make very clear connections between your interpretation and argument and your source by re-quoting, or phrase quoting as you discuss.

What does it mean?

What Plato seems to be getting at is that it is possible to hear something, like a lecture perhaps, without truly learning anything from it. But he’s talking about the use of letters, so the superficial hearing in this case is really actually reading. We can, he says, read without understanding. It is interesting that he uses the terms hearing, which he would seem to value as it relates to speaking which he favors over writing.  This makes is clear that the real distinction he wants to make is between really knowing something and having only surface knowledge.

Notice how often I repeated the specific terms (and synonyms) from the quotation. Notice also that this is A LOT longer than the quotation itself. If you have chosen a significant quotation, it should take some time to explain it.

Now for the last step: What is important about this quotation?

This question continues to have validity in classrooms today. Teachers can give a lecture, but until the students use their knowledge, we have no idea whether the ideas have simply gone in one ear and out of the other--whether they hear much but learn little.  To strictly follow Plato, it seems that we would need to orally examine students, or ask students to demonstrate their knowledge in an oral presentation after they had heard a lecture or read some material for the course. But, oral examination fails to take into account the fact that students now--unlike the students of Plato’s time--have learned to learn in a culture of writing.

           

This is still a draft, but what you should see in this paragraph is that I spent almost half of the paragraph discussing and explaining Plato. It is also important to see that I stayed tightly focused on the key ideas of the source material even as I started to work out my own argument.

In the Phaedrus, Plato explains the invention of writing through a dialogue between Theuth, the inventor, and Thamus, the king who is skeptical of writing.  One aspect of this criticism is that people who use written letters “will be hearers of many things . . .[but they] will have learned nothing” (Jowett 1). What Plato seems to be getting at is that it is possible to hear something, like a lecture perhaps, without truly learning anything from it. But he’s talking about the use of letters, so the superficial hearing in this case is really actually reading. We can, he says, read without understanding. It is interesting that he uses the terms hearing, which he would seem to value as it relates to speaking which he favors over writing.  This makes is clear that the real distinction he wants to make is between really knowing something and having only surface knowledge.  This question continues to have validity in classrooms today. Teachers can give a lecture, but until the students use their knowledge, we have no idea whether the ideas have simply gone in one ear and out of the other--whether they hear much but learn little.  To strictly follow Plato, it seems that we would need to orally examine students, or ask students to demonstrate their knowledge in an oral presentation after they had heard a lecture or read some material for the course. But, oral examination fails to take into account the fact that students now--unlike the students of Plato’s time--have learned to learn in a culture of writing.

Writing about Plato (part 1)

Plato’s ideas in the excerpt of The Phaedrus that we are studying might lead us to think carefully about objects (books) and tasks (reading and writing) we probably take for granted.  Did you take nay notes today?  Write a text message or status update? Read anything?  Can you imagine your day without using the ‘drug’ of writing?

Given Plato’s critique of writing as only a pale representation of real, embodied truth and knowledge, it seems that I shouldn’t even assign a written essay, but ask everyone to talk their argument through for 6 minutes or so.  Does that seem much scarier to you than writing it?  It does to me!

And, it wouldn’t quite be in keeping with my job to let you give a speech rather than a written essay.  After all, how can I justify my grades to you if I don’t have that piece of paper that proves how well you did?  But that’s another conversation . . .

This one is, briefly, about writing about Plato.  For your essay, and for the prelim due Friday, I am asking you to work with some of Plato’s exact words—to show, in other words, how you get from Plato’s ideas to your own. This is partly about mechanics (where do quotations marks and so on go), but more importantly about understanding.  If you can write a clear sentence quoting someone else, you are on your way to a deeper understanding of the ideas you are working with.

The passage we spent the most time on today (you’ll look back on these slow-moving discussions with fondness in a few weeks!) was this:

 And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality. (Jowett translation 1-2)

That’s only two sentences, but a chunk o’ text. Your job as a writer is to break this down and explain it for your readers—but to do so in way that is also helping you to explain your own ideas. For the purposes of this post and the next, I’m going to pretend that I have an argument to make about education and about whether written things like tests or essays prove what students know. Of course, your argument will be different.

When working with a text you need to ask yourself a few questions(you’ll find these questions in the packet as well):

1. What does a reader need to know before you can talk about the passage? What is the CONTEXT of this quotation? Or, where in the world of all the possible texts are we? And, in that text, where are we?  

2. What does it mean? 

3. What do I really NEED to quote from this passage? (Editing, chopping, incorporating the words into a sentence of your own.)

4. What is important about this quotation? (Extend the idea.  Use the idea.  Show how it fits with your argument. Blend.)

 I’m going to work with questions 1 and 3 today.  I’ll come back to 2 and 4 later in the week.

1. Context: Context often takes the form of brief summary. You'll need to do more of this early on and less as your reader gets oriented.

In the Phaedrus, Plato explains the invention of writing through a dialogue between Theuth, the inventor, and Thamus, the king who is skeptical of writing.

3. What do I need? I can’t talk about the whole passage, so I’m going to choose one part:

“they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing.” This seems like it could work with my argument.

One aspect of this criticism is that people who use written letters “will be hearers of many things . . .[but they] will have learned nothing” (Jowett 1).

Notice that I added ‘people who use written letters’ to remind the reader of who 'they' refers to; that wouldn't be so clear if I left it like this:

One aspect of this criticism is that “they will be hearers of many things . . .[but they] will have learned nothing” (Jowett 1).
I also changed ‘and’ to ‘but’ to show that Thamus is comparing these qualities.  That comparison is clear in the original long passage, but not so clear when I start chopping down the quotation. The changes, I made within the quotation, including repeating 'they' to make the sentence easier to understand, go in brackets; I indicate that I eliminated a word--'and'-- by using an ellipsis (. . . ).  Notice that my changes do not change the original meaning of the phrase. 

What I end up with is:

In the Phaedrus, Plato explains the invention of writing through a dialogue between Theuth, the inventor, and Thamus, the king who is skeptical of writing .  One aspect of this criticism is that people who use written letters “will be hearers of many things . . .[but they] will have learned nothing” (Jowett 1).

So, I’ve pinned Plato down a bit and now I’m ready to say something about hearing, learning nothing, and learning something. Notice that I've written two sentences and haven't really started in on MY IDEAS.  But my reader can, at least, locate where I'm coming from (so to speak).

Reading Plato

This excerpt from the dialogue The Phaedrus is only about 5 pages long but it is quite dense.  This is partly because Socrates (as represented by Plato’s writing) speaks in long sentences, sometimes using questions and sometimes using periodic sentences.  We’ll work on ways to sort out and rephrase what he’s saying in class.

In the meantime, and perhaps as part of your response, consider the following:

• There are actually four speakers here since Socrates relates a conversation between Theuth and Thamus. Sort out who says what, especially in the story of the invention of writing.
• What role does Phaedrus play in the dialogue?
• Is the fact that this is a dialogue important?
• In the story of the invention of writing, Theuth calls writing a ‘specific.’ Specific is an obsolete or archaic word meaning remedy or medicine.* (Jowett’s translation was published around 1871.)  The Greek word is “pharmakon” and also has been translated in this part of the Phaedrus as recipe, potion, or drug.  What difference does that word make? What significance would other translations have?
• Socrates compares writing to painting. Why? Does it seem like a valid comparison?
• Socrates also compares writing to two different kinds of farming or gardening.  What exactly is the comparison here? (And if that’s a tough questions--don’t worry, we’ll be working it out in class, too!)
• 
  
  Where does Socrates understand knowledge to exist?  How does that compare with your own understanding of what knowledge is and where it exists?

*From the OED:  specific, n. 3a. Med. Of remedies, etc.: Specially or exclusively efficacious for, or acting upon, a particular ailment or part of the body.

Useful Resources.  Sign into the OU Library homepage  and check out the OED,  THE best online dictionary and Gale Virutal Reference which has articles about almost everything.

The New Semester

The spring semester always makes me think of Pee Chee folders.



I'm an office supply addict.

Unlike in the fall, when there are lots of supplies to buy, starting the spring semester always meant reorganizing the folders.



I don’t have any Pee Chees to sort out , but I’m excited for this semester, too.  Although I’ve been teaching the “Media Shifts” class for several semesters, the topic of communication media continues to be interesting since the changes are happening so quickly and so constantly.  I’m fascinated by where we are now and by where we might be going.

My background is in the history of reading.  The scholarly work that I publish concerns readers in the 1700s--a time when reading and books were still a bit new. But some people were concerned that books and the habits of reading would disrupt the social order. And, in many ways, they were right.  The spread of knowledge in books did lead people to think about how society was organized.  Just consider what happened in the 1700s:  The French Revolution and the American Revolution. 

Are there new revolutions to come in the digital age?  I hope we’ll be able to think about this question in the weeks to come.  In the meantime, here's a resource you might want to look at as we think about one of the first people to worry about the consequences of media change--Plato.

Perseus Digital Library

Welcome!

Welcome to the Spring 2011 blog for the "Media Shifts" sections of OU's Expository Writing Program. More soon . . . .