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University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 8-2016 Amused teachers and public readers : empathy and derision in "student blooper" collections. Jessica Winck University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at:https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Part of theRhetoric and Composition Commons Recommended Citation Winck, Jessica, "Amused teachers and public readers : empathy and derision in "student blooper" collections." (2016).Electronic Theses and Dissertations.Paper 2544. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/2544 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. AMUSED TEACHERS AND PUBLIC READERS: EMPATHY AND DERISION IN “STUDENT BLOOPER” COLLECTIONS By Jessica Winck B.A., Emerson College, 2008 M.A., Ohio State University, 2010 M.A., Eastern Michigan University, 2012 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Louisville in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English/Rhetoric and Composition Department of English University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky August 2016 AMUSED TEACHERS AND PUBLIC READERS: EMPATHY AND DERISION IN “STUDENT BLOOPER” COLLECTIONS By Jessica Winck B.A., Emerson College, 2008 M.A., Ohio State University, 2010 M.A., Eastern Michigan University, 2012 A Dissertation Approved on July 28, 2016 by the following Dissertation Committee: ______________________________ Bronwyn Williams ______________________________ Karen Kopelson ______________________________ Brenda Brueggemann ______________________________ Kiki Petrosino ______________________________ John Duffy ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to the unnamed students whose writing, published online and in print without their permission or knowledge, appears throughout this dissertation. Their work inspired this project and inspired me. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I owe thanks to many people who supported me and my work while I wrote this dissertation. Bronwyn Williams, my dissertation director, listened to my ideas in countless brainstorming sessions and read and responded to multiple drafts of this project. Most of all, I thank him for believing in me and this work. In addition, I am grateful to my committee members – Karen Kopelson, Brenda Brueggemann, Kiki Petrosino, and John Duffy – who provided feedback that challenged me and nurtured the core aims of this project. I also want to thank my fellow dissertation group members, who read and responded to drafts of these chapters. Many colleagues near and far also deserve my thanks. I am grateful to John Dunn, jr., Ann Blakeslee, and Douglas Baker, who nurtured my interest in empathic, ethical teaching. Additionally, I give thanks to the generous teachers and scholars who, at conferences, offered feedback that shaped my ideas in this project. And at moments when I struggled with the vision for a chapter or a section, Ashly Smith was available in person, on the phone, or over Skype to help me find my way again. I want to express thanks to my partner, Michael Revel, for his love and generosity, and for making day-to-day life so joyful. Finally, I thank my parents, Michael and June Winck, who taught me empathy. Their influence shaped this project and my life, and their uncommon goodness will be with me always. iv ABSTRACT AMUSED TEACHERS AND PUBLIC READERS: EMPATHY AND DERISION IN “STUDENT BLOOPER” COLLECTIONS Jessica Winck August 9, 2016 This dissertation examines the long-standing tradition in education of sharing and publishing students’ unintentionally amusing mistakes. Often called “bloopers,” “boners,” and “howlers,” students’ writing mistakes have been published in print since at least the early 20th century and more recently online. Using theories of reading student writing, academic discourse, ethics, and humor, this project analyzes the misconceptions that teachers and public audiences have of students, re-reads student writing for its potential, and explores the ethical implications of sharing student work with public audiences. The first two chapters ground the reader in the historical, social, and cultural contexts in which teachers share or publish student writing. The culture of remediation, persistent in K-12 and higher education contexts, shapes readings of student writing that prioritize correctness. Collections of student “bloopers” imply aspects of teacher-student relationships; thus these relationships can be re-thought not only in terms of broader models like remediation, but also through the practices that help define those relationships, such as methods of reading and assessing student writing. v The third chapter reviews several frameworks related to ethical uses of student writing, such as those embraced by professional organizations and institutional guidelines. Through a closer look at the value of student writing from a research perspective, this chapter explores the tension between the treatment of student writing in research and the treatment of student writing in teaching. Meanwhile, the fourth chapter provides an extensive re-reading of several published student excerpts on the website Shit My Students Write. Through the application of humor theory, we can acknowledge the aspects of student error that prompt teachers to be humored while also interrogating the assumptions and misconceptions about error that inform why we are humored. This dissertation concludes with recommendations for engaging with representations of students and student writing. Teacher education is an important site that can foster changes in the teaching profession. Further recommendations for advocacy through public rhetoric are provided. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………………..iv ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………...v CHAPTER I…………………………………………………………………………...1 CHAPTER II…...……………………………………………………………………...40 CHAPTER III………………………………………………………………………….65 CHAPTER IV…………………………………………………………………………100 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………..120 REFERENCES..……………………………………………………………………….137 CURRICULUM VITA………………………………………………………………...153 vii CHAPTER I AMUSED TEACHERS AND PUBLIC READERS: EMPATHY AND DERISION IN “STUDENT BLOOPER” COLLECTIONS Fig. 1. “Anne Hathaway.” Shit My Students Write. 19 July 2013. Web. 7 March 2016. If we believe the drama created by the popular blog Shit My Students Write, then we assume that this excerpt is from the writing of a student in an English class, likely in high school or college. We can assume the teacher found the passage humorous enough to share with others and then submitted it to Shit My Students Write. Since its publication in July 2013, this passage has accumulated 13,842 “notes,” which indicate how many times Tumblr users have “liked” or reblogged the post. Even 13,842 people is an astounding number for the audience student writers traditionally have in the writing classroom, let alone that many interactions with the text: “likes” indicate approval, and reblogging indicates that viewers want to share the text with others. The audience for this student text, along with the hundreds of other student texts on Shit My Students Write, is not limited to Tumblr users. Student writing published on 1
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