ERIC ED361746: Responding to Student Poems: Applications of Critical Theory.

253 Pages·1993·4.2 MB·English

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 361 746
CS 214 041
AUTHOR
Bizzaro, Patrick
TITLE
Responding to Student Poems: Applications of Critical
Theory.
INSTITUTION
National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana,
REPORT NO
ISBN-0-8141-4088-2
PUB DATE
93
NOTE
253p.
AVAILABLE FROM National Council of Teachers of English, 1111 W.
Kenyon Rd., Urbana, IL 61801-1096 (Stock No.
40882-3050: $14.95 members, $19.95 nonmembers).
PUB TYPE
Books (010) -- Guides
Non-Classroom Use (055)
EDRS PRICE
MF01/PC11 Plus Postage.
DESCRIPTORS
Higher Education; Literary Criticism; *Poetry; Reader
Response; Secondary Education; Student Evaluation;
*Teacher Response; Teacher Role; *Writing
Evaluation
IDENTIFIERS
Author ext Relationship; Compositicn Theory;
Deconstruction; Feminist Criticism; New Criticism;
Text Factors
ABSTRACT
Urging teachers of poetry writing to better
understand themselves as writers and readers, this book
"interrogates" a strategy teachers might employ in reading
and
evaluating student poems. A thoughtful study of
a teacher is
presented while in the process of evaluating student poetry through
the lenses of four different contemporary critical theories:
New
Criticism, reader-response criticism, deconstruction, and feminist
criticism. Chapters in the book are:
(1) Literary Theory, Composition
Theory, and the Reading of Poetry Writing; (2) The Teacher
as Writer,
Reader, and Editor; (3) The Authority cf the Text: Some Applications
of the New Criticism;
(4) Intezaction and Assessment: Some
Applications of Reader-Response Criticism; (5) Intentional
and
Unintentioni..1 Exclusions: Some Applications of Deconstruction;
(6) On
Becoming a "Resisting Reader": Some Applications of Feminist
Criticism;
(7) Reading the Course in Poetry Writing: Preparing
Students for the Workshop;
(8) Grading Student Poems: Adaptations of
the New Criticism and Reader-Response Criticism; and (9) The
Teacher's Many Selves: Negotiating the Course in
Poetry Writing.
(Contains 149 references.)
(RS)
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Responding to
Student Poems
Applications of Critical Theory
Patrick Bizzaro
East Carolina University
National Council of Teachers of English
1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, Illinois 61801-1096
3
This book is written for my children, Jason and Kristin, who have taught me
how to teach, and for my students.
NCTE Editorial Board: Keith Gilyard, Ronald Jobe, Joyce T:inkead, Louise W.
Phelps, Gladys V. Veidemanis, Charles Suhor, chair, ex officio, Michael
Spooner, ex officio
Manuscript Editor: Michael E. Himick
Production Editor: Rona S. Smith
Cover Design: Barbara Yale-Read
Interior Book Design: Doug Burnett
NCTE Stock Number 40882-3050
© 1993 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Permission acknowledgments appear on page 236.
It is the policy of NCTE in its journals and other publications to provide a
forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teach-
ing of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular
point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the
Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except in announcements of
policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bizzaro, Patrick.
Responding to student poems : applications of critical theory /
Patrick Bizzaro.
cm.
p.
Includes bibliographical references (p.
).
ISBN 0-8141-4088-2 : $19.95 (est.)
2. Poetry
1. English languageRhetoricStudy and teaching.
3. PoetryAuthorshipStudy
History and criticismTheory, etc.
4. Creative writingStudy and teaching.
and teaching.
5. Poetics.
I. Title.
PE1404.B584
1993
808.1dc20
93-30623
CIP
4
First, suppose you had a chance to work with someone who would
correct your writing into publishability. This person would be
efficient, knowing, memorable, valid: an accomplished writer. In the
company of this person you could go confidently into the center of
current acceptance; you would quickly learn what brings success in
the literary scene.
Now suppose another kind of associate. This one would
accompany you as you discovered for yourself whatever it is that
most satisfiyingly links to your own life and writings. You would be
living out of your own self into its expression, almost without
regard to the slant or expectation or demands of editors and the
public.
Let there be no mistake about it: a large and significant, and I
believe most significant, group of writers today would prefer 'he
second kind of company.
William Stafford, Writing the Australian Crawl
The unsettling fact is that in America the majority of new, "serious"
imaginative writing is being produced by writers trained in M.F.A.
programs staffed by teachers who themselves are products of M.F.A.
programs.
Eve Shelnutt, "Notes from a Cell:
Creative Writing Programs in Isolation"
Most teachers do not share pedagogical strategies; and thus they lack
any cohesiveness in their professional interpersonal relationships. By
sharing their power and roles, teachers will be in a better position to
break through the provincialism and narrow socialization that
prevents them from sharing and examining their theory and practice
of pedagogy with both students and colleagues.
Henry Giroux, Teachers as Intellectuals
5
vii
Contents
ix
Acknowledgments
xi
Introduction
1. Literary Theor7, Composition Theory, and the Reading
of Poetry Writing
1
2. The Teacher as Writer, Reader, and Editor
14
3. The Authority of the Text: Some Applications of
39
the New Criticism
4. Interaction and Assessment: Some Applications of
Reader-Response Criticism
65
5. Intentional and Unintentional Exclusions: Some
Applications of Deconstruction
93
6. On Becoming a "Resisting Reader": Some Applications
123
of Feminist Criticism
7. Reading the Course in Poetry Writing: Preparing
Students for the Workshop
159
8. Grading Student Poems: Adaptations of the New
Criticism and Reader-Response Criticism
192
9. The Teacher's Many Selves: Negotiating the Course
in Poetry Writing
220
227
References
235
Author
6
ix
Acknowledgments
First, I would like to thank James W. Kirkland of East Carolina University,
who read and reacted to this book in its various incarnations, even as many
as ten years ago when portions were being offered as journal articles. He is a
true friend and colleague. And by sharing ideas with Nedra Reynolds of the
University of Rhode Island and other of my fine colleagues at ECU, including
Collett Dilworth and Frank Farmer, I was able to envision and re-envision
many of the theoretical elements of this book.
I am also indebted to my colleagues Gay Wilentz and Jo Allen of East
Carolina and Rebecca Smith of Barton College, whose advice on how I might
approach my chapter on feminist criticism was surpassed only by their en-
couragement that I continue my work in that area in light of my gender
limitations. They are excellent teachers. I would also like to express my
appreciation to Resa Crane-Rodger of UNC-Greensboro for helping me bet-
ter envision the layout of chapter 7.
Naturally, this book would not have been written if it weren't for the
many fine students over the years who have found this approach to work-
shop instruction refreshing, challenging, and sometimes even interesting.
Their writing appears with their permission and my appreciation throughout
this book.
Still, I want to express my appreciation to East Carolina University, the
Department of English, and Dean Keats Sparrow for providing me with time
off from teaching early in the process of writing this book. During that time,
the basic elements of the book came together in something similar to its
current form.
What's more, the depth of Michael Spooner's kindness, encourage-
ment, and patience as I brought this book to completion is unparalleled
among the editors with whom I have worked.
My ideas evolved over the years, as some of the earlier efforts I made,
published in various journals and collections of essays, will testify. I thus
want to thank the following editors and publishers for permission to adapt
or reprint materials from my previous publications: David Dillon for an
article published in Language Arts, Alex Albright and Luke Whisnant for
"Tobacco Fields," first published as "Collard Fields" in Leaves of Green, and
Peter Makuck for "Imagining the Bees," first published in Tar River Poetry, all
of which I make use of in chapter 2; Charles R. Duke and Sally A. Jacobsen,
editors of Poets' Perspectives: Reading, Writing, and Teaching Poetry, and their
publisher, Boynton/Cook, for material adapted for use in chapters 3, 5, and
8; Donald A. Daiker and Max Morenberg, editors of The Writing Teacher as
Researcher, and their publisher, Boynton/Cook, for material used in chapter 8;
and Nell Ann Pickett for material from Teaching English in the Two-Year College
also used in chapter 8.
Finally, I cannot adequately express my gratitude to my wife, Susan,
and our children, Jason and Kristin, without whom the courage to put a word
on the page might never have come.
7
xi
Introduction
If he is worth a damn, any poet teaching poetny writing constantly and
often without knowing it is saying to the student, "Write the way I do.
That's the best sound you can make." The student who shakes this, who
goes on to his auditory obsessions and wlio writes the way the teacher
never told him, may become a poet.
Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town
perhaps no course in writing is more difficult to teach than poetry
writing, and no task in that course more ,challenging than read-
ing and evaluating poems written by student-writers. In spite of
this fact, little scholarship has been published in recent years concern-
ing how to teach students to write poems. At one extreme, this dearth
of scholarship reflects our profession'.s lack of curiosity concerning
what happens when teachers read and evaluate student poetry. At the
other, it reflects simple acceptance of traditional but untested methods
of instruction. Joseph M. Moxley (1989) essentially summarizes this
predicament when he writes, "At present, no debate rages in profes-
sional journals as to whether creative writing programs are providing
students with the necessary skills, knowledge of the composing proc-
ess, or background in literature to write well" (xi). Wendy Bishop
(1990) adds, "It is my belief that academic creative writing has not been
responsive enough to theoretical and pedagogical changes now going
on in literature studies and composition studies (not to mention cul-
tural studies, feminist studies, and linguistics)" (xvi). She argues that
"we need to move beyond critique and begin to institute more produc-
tive practices" (xvi).
Because no one has yet scrutinized methods of reading and
evaluating student poems, we have had to rely for guidance upon the
anecdotal reports and insights of expert-practitioners (see Moxley
1989, Turner 1980, Hugo 1979, Packard 1974 and 1987, and Stafford
1978). While no doubt valuable contributions to the teaching of poetry
writing classes, these statements nonetheless leave us with a string of
untested opinions. As a result, "no debate rages," and instructors must
plan and teach their courses without access to a body of literature that
would enable them to participate in what Sharon Crowley (1989) calls
the "interrogation of the strategies used to teach reading and writ-
ing" (48).
xii
Responding to Student Poems
Building a Foundational Understanding
This book attempts to "interrogate" a strategy teachers might employ
in reading and evaluating student poems. It begins by encouraging
teachers to better understand themselves as writers and readers; it
ends by showing how teachers might use various literary-critical
methodologies to evaluate student poems in a way that helps students
shorten their apprenticeship to their master-teachers. There is little
doubt that such apprenticeships exist, even among renowned literary
figures. There is also little doubt that such apprenticeships can have ill
effects, as Richard Hugo'.5 (1979) discussion of Theodore Roethke's
dominance over his studerey makes clear:
Roethke, through his fierce love of kinds of verbal music, could
be overly influential. David Wagoner, who was quite young
when he studied under Roethke at Penn State, told me once of
the long painful time he had breaking Roethke's hold on
him. (29)
In fact, those who have considered the problems inherent in writing
teachers' authority over their students wonder how writers ever man-
age to set themselves free. According to William Stafford (1978), "You
can become a lost soul in literature just as surely as you can in any
activity where you abandon yourself to the decisions of others" (78).
This book confronts the problem of authority in the poetry writing
course in the belief that teachers can do a great deal to shorten their
students' apprenticeships by becoming what Stafford calls "the second
kind of company"
The confrontation here begins by bringing together the concerns
and strategies of the composition theorist and the literary critic in an
effort to deal with matters not satisfactorily handled by "received"
methods of instruction, which, for lack of a better name, I will call the
traditional workshop approach (see chapter 7). Such matters include
how the stated or unstated strategies teachers employ as writers, read-
ers, and critics of their own writing influence the way they read,
interpret, and evaluate their students' poems. Only if teachers recog-
nize their reliance on received methods of instruction and evaluation
will they be able to determine when methods employed "naturally"
or
"unknowingly" in examining their own writing will be helpful in
evaluating their students' poemsand when evaluation through other
critical lenses might be more beneficial. In the words of Bishop (1990),
a pioneer in such inquiry, "By looking at our own processes and by
studying current writing research, we can build a foundational under-
9
xiii
Introduction
standing of composing that will help us choose and evaluate our own
pedagogy" (15). To reinforce this viewthat additional tools are nec-
evaluating
essary if we hope to institute more productive practices in
student poemsrecent commentary on reading and evaluating writ-
ing will be surveyed to show that methods of literary criticism are well
suited to the goal of reading and interpreting student writing.
The best possible justification for a study such as this one seems
uniquely related to the profession's reliance on untested methods of
instruction in poetry writing classes. As Moxley (1989) notes, "Despite
the rapid growth and popularity of courses and programs in creative
writing, pedagogical techniques have not evolved all that much. In
fact, perhaps because they studied at Iowa or were trained by gradu-
ates of the Iowa Writers Workshop, most creative writing teachers at
the undergraduate and graduate levels follow the same studio method
established at Oregon and Iowa over ninety years ago" (xiii). Such
techniques need to be tested, especially since they rely upon the
teacher 's authority in all course-related matters, from selecting texts to
judging student poems. And in testing this method of instruction, we
must pay particular attention to the methods of reading and writing
supported by traditional pedagogy methods which "have not evolved
all that much." For if we do not question this pedagogy now, the
problem we must ultimately confront is, as Eve Shelnutt (1989) de-
scribes it, "the unsettling fact . .. that in America the majority of new,
'serious' imaginative writing is being produced by writers trained in
M.F.A. programs staffed by teachers who themselves are products of
M.F.A. programs" (4). Thus, the evolution of genre and potential for
self-expression will be effectively checked.
Making Necessary Interrogations
This book does not attack or indict the workshop or studio method of
instruction. Rather, its purpose is, first, to simply acknowledge the
existence of a pedagogy long accepted in the teaching of poetry writ-
ing, and second, by bringing together recent findings concerning the
interrelatedness of literary-critical theory and composition theory, to
offer some new insights into how a teacher of poetry writing (and
writers in most workshop situations) might most effectively approach
the task of reading and evaluating student poems. The advice of
teacher-writers as authorities, as usually echoed in workshops, is in-
valuable in guiding students in the making of poems. But many teach-
ers are concerned that students be able to scrutinize, read, and
I 0