Banned Books

In the fall semester, Banned Books week (starts Sept 24 this year) always falls around Unit 2--just as we are discussing some of the long term and large scale effects of reading.

It seems like an important moment to remember that literacy has not always been easy to come by--and still isn't in some places in the world. It also seems like a good moment to remember that many people, both through time and in the present day, have been/ are actively prohibited from learning to read. Some of those who can read have been / are actively prohibited from having choice about what they read. In this country, most book challenges are made in school libraries--ostensibly to protect children-- but worldwide, censorship at all levels is alive and well.

 So read a banned book!

Or look at the lists of banned/ challenged books and see which ones you have already read.

banned books week, american library association

banned and challenged classics

challenged books by year (you'll be surprised!)

Print Technology

Here are a few videos that show what printing and typesetting looked like in the early days of print.  Compare this to hitting the 'print' button!
demo of hand press
typesetting video
typesetting video (2)

Print and thinking

In Understanding Media, McLuhan writes that print (or typography, to use his term) "had psychic and social consequences that suddenly shifted previous boundaries and patterns of culture" (233).  We can, with some thought about the historical period he is discussing, grasp what he mean by shifting social boundaries. But "psychic"?? It's a wacky word with supernatural connotations.Careful reading of the rest of McLuhan's chapter suggests that he is really thinking about thinking: print makes it possible to think in new ways.

Of course, from Plato to McLuhan and including hundreds of commentators in between, people have wondered and worried about what forms of media might do to our minds. It is only relatively recently, though, that scientists have had the tools to actually study what happens in the brain when it encounters and processes different forms of media stimulation.

As Hayles notes in the class reading ("Hyper and Deep Attention"), all of the evidence from a variety of branches of science suggest that there are changes in the brain when it encounters various media stimulation:  "the brain's synaptic connections are evolving with an environment in which media consumption is a dominant factor"  (192).  But as she points out, to note that we can now see  such changes (with technology like the functional MRI) is not the same as evaluating the changes, or evaluating which kinds of attention, hyper or deep, we should cultivate. In fact, she argues, we need to be more conscious of how we might deploy both kinds of attention. She uses the example of video games, then, as one way we might "buil[d] bridges between deep and hyper attention" (114).

What do you think of the idea of using video games in classrooms? Does this argument seem persuasive to you? More importantly perhaps, she suggests that hyper attention evolved before deep attention; other scholars note that reading is a very unnatural act for our brains to master.  Should we let our brains do what seems to come more naturally, using games in education for example? Or should we carefully train them?

More McLuhan

McLuhan can be difficult--as we discussed in class, this is often because he moves between different moments in time (different stages of history) within the same paragraph or sentence. So, as you review and start to work with McLuhan's ideas, you should ask yourself the following three questions:  

• Is this phrase/sentence discussing the time before print? 
• Is it discussing the explosion of print? 
• Or is it discussing the implosion of electric communication?

For the essay assignment in Unit 2, you should also focus on the specific "social and psychic consequences" of print.  A brief list would include:

• spread of knowledge and ideas
• shattering tribal bonds (questioning traditional, hierarchical structures of power and social organization)
• emergence /strengthening of individuality
• individual self-expression; change in the idea of authorship
• private point of view
• acting without reacting (detachment, dissociation, objectivity, analytic thought) [key]
• transparency and openness based on repeatable, regular printed materials (think school and laws)

Questions you might start to ask as you move into writing your own essay might include:

• What are the dangers (the 'torpedoes' in McLuhan's final image) that moving forward might expose us to?
• What do we stand to lose or gain by moving into the use of 'newer' media? Are we becoming a global village? Are there costs for entering the global village? 
• McLuhan tells us not to panic about the threat of new media, but could he be wrong? Are there reasons to panic?

McLuhan

I'll post more about McLuhan and our new readings later this week, but in the meantime, here's the link to a previous post with further links to  videos about McLuhan.
McLuhan videos

Writing Advice

My last post was trying to make this point: take all writing advice (even advice masquerading as a 'rule') under advisement. Don't let rules stop you from being clear.


This last bit is something of a paraphrase from a well-known essay by George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language." As he writes, after providing his own list of rules, "Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous." *


The essay is often standard reading for college writing students; you can find a copy here--or in any library! And you can find a discussion of it here, by a colleague of mine who used to teach at OU and now teaches in California. His blog is listed on the right.


I encourage you to not only check out his blog, but to investigate other online resources that might help you think about your writing.  I have already mentioned the Grammar Girl; the OU Writing Center (with links to citation guides) is here and I will be adding more links (see pages to the right) as I find good resources.  Let me know if you find a good online resource.


* From A Collection of Essays, Harcourt (1946, 1981), 170.

Rules, Rules, Rules

Or maybe not. There are rules that everyone who writes has to follow--usage rules, like the difference between affect and effect, or grammatical rules like the fact that a sentence must have a subject and a verb.** 

But I’m always astonished at the kinds of rules students tell me that other writing teachers imposed upon them.  I certainly don't want to attack other writing instructors--especially teachers in public high schools who are often dealing with well over a hundred students at a time. And  I sense the logic behind some rules--forbidding “I” might make students more likely to argue rather than assert unfounded positions. But some I can’t fathom at all--don’t use contractions ( I suppose they say “do not use contractions”), don’t use “because,” never start a sentence with “but”  or “and.” What really gets me about some of these rules that students seem to carry around in their heads is that is STOPS them from writing--and often stops them from writing clearly.  If you have to torture a sentence to avoid a perfectly good work ( like “I” or “but” or “we”), it often makes the already hard work of writing even harder.

Again, I’m not writing this to criticize other teachers, because I think ALL writing practice is good.  And maybe the discipline of being told DON’T DO THIS, whatever this is, is helpful, too.

Perhaps I’m just too freethinking, but I have very few rules, and I’m certainly not interested in creating a lot of strange little arbitrary rules. General approaches seem more useful and take into account the fact that individuals are, well, individual.  If you want to challenge one of my general approaches and you have a good reason, I’ll be open to that. 

In fact, if I do have a rule it is this: know what choices you’ve made in your writing and be able to defend them.  Used a strange word, or a used a word in an unusual manner? Fine, as long as you say, or suggest, why (in whatever you are writing). Don’t have a thesis statement? Ok, as long as your argument is crystal clear from the body paragraphs. Want to write a one sentence paragraph? Go for it, as long as that brevity is warranted by its position in the development of your argument.

I have a few pet peeves based on widespread misuses (number v. amount  is one, I may reveal more in later posts), but here is my general advice (advice--not rules!): 

• You should do whatever you need to do to write in a way that sounds like you at your most articulate. Write in your own voice, not a colloquial, slangy voice, but the voice you would use if you could have 5 minutes to think through every thing you say.    
• You should do whatever you need to do to write in a way that reflects your best thinking. That thinking should be reflected in grammatical sentences--syntax, as Stanley Fish tells us being a way of logically organizing the world. *

Finally: Don’t censor yourself by trying to avoid this word, or that kind of construction, or by following a formula that isn't helping. 


What are some rules you've learned about writing? Were they helpful or are they rules you are ready to break?
***************

** Some very good writers frequently use sentence fragments --but this is one of those cases where you really have to know the rule before you can break it! Also, confused about affect v effect? Check this out:grammar girl on affect/effect
* In How to Write a Sentence (Harper Collins)