Genre, Pedagogy, and the MVE

Setting the Table

Serving It Up

Responding to Bazerman

Teaching the MVE

Play and Pedagogy

Genre and Our MVE

Reflections on Genre

Play and Pedagogy

"Play" is an important, embraced concept, in the work of Bazerman and Freadman–a concept that connotes the productive playing with genres to keep them alive and fresh, even as they are put to serious purposes. But as Albert Rouzie has shown, play is a much contested term in pedagogical circles, and tends to have particularly negative connotations when associated with computers.

How to foster the productive use of playfulness in writing instruction, collaboration, and collaborative electronic writing cannot, as Rouzie says in his conclusion, be easily or quickly answered. But he and our group seem to agree that computers, and an MVE assignment, are likely to introduce a playful element into an assignment, and instructors should be prepared to work with that energy to attain the course’s goals.

Kevin: The way I see the 120 final assignment–the way that I do it right now, anyway–it certainly comes out of the academic work tradition’. I ask them to look at a social issue, and to take a certain angle on a social issues, and those projects are definitely not nearly as playful as what happens in a 458 [Advanced Writing Workshop]. But there is also a play element just in: my gosh I am putting something on the web. There is sort of that ah-ha experience. Joyce talks about it just as that ability to write back to the web. Here is a medium that you always thought that you just read something on it, you don’t put stuff on it, or you maybe go to geocities and put up your little homepage, and that is about it. So there is that kind of experience going on. And I think for some, the visual design element, or what [Gunther] Kress would simply call the design element of that assignment, is seen as some of the playfulness of that assignment. Instead of having to do the 1 inch margins and the double space and stuff like that, there is a lot more freedom in terms of playfulness. Simply bringing in the color, for whatever reason, seems to excite [students], the fact that they can make the computer change colors.

Dayna: It excites me!

Kevin: And that is good to know. Those were my experiences with designing on the web, too, My first one said "hi", and I was "ohh, cool!!!" It doesn’t work for all students, but it seems to work for a lot of them.

I don’t know where I am going with this playfulness, but I think it is an important element. I think this is what Rouzie is trying to get at. He is saying this is an important, an almost undeniable element of the computer. As a medium, it brings in a certain amount of playfulness. We associate certain amounts of playfulness with the computer, even though we also use it for work quite a bit. . . .

For me, it also comes back to genre, it plays off of the Anne Freadman, "Anyone for Tennis"? For me it is about the metaphors, the language we use to talk about these assignments. Last week we talked a lot about the metaphor of dinner conversations versus other kinds of metaphors. Does the idea of playfulness, the idea of returning someone’s shot–is that a metaphor that works for you? Do you think it will work for your students? Is playfulness an element that you want to bring into the classroom, or do you see it–as he says, many people have seen it as either potentially disruptive or distracting or apolitical, to the point of being conservative. Are these issues that worry you?

Is this an issue for 458? [Addressing Dayna:] I think that came out in one of your responses What is this assignment really doing? Sure it is kinda fun and goofy and stuff like that, but as play, does it really accomplish anything.

Dayna: Well, I think it is hard to buy into play in the classroom because that is not something you traditionally–it is sort of like you give up recess when you go to junior high, and that is it. Even the creative writing classes I took in high school had a very structured sense to them, and I would not say that I associate playfulness with the classroom. Even though I think that the classroom atmosphere that I create as a teacher is probably very playful compared to a lot of other classrooms. Even my students sometimes look at me in total disbelief, like when I read them The Monster at the End of this Book a couple of weeks ago. And they were just shell shocked. I mean, they wanted to like it, but they were scared to like it. And, how much more playful do you get than me playing Grover screaming? That is pretty dang playful. And as a student, I feel the same way–I’m not really sure. This [dinner conversation, our MVE] is about as playful as I have every gotten, and I really like this. But this other assignment [Advanced Writing Workshop] has been difficult for me to buy into playfulness because I am not really sure how to do it, even.

Lynne: Don’t we have to got back and think about what our jobs are, teaching 110 and 120? Part of it is we have to teach them a works cited page because they will be writing 500,000 papers throughout college that need a works cited page, and they need this, and they need that. How do you allow them to play, and then still make sure that they go through and do all they need to do? But then they forget it all anyways, so… I don’t know if that is a good argument, either.

Dayna: But I also think too, that play is hard to assess. So it is a little bit scary to, I think, do that, because, I feel like, at least as a TA, I have to be accountable. You know, if I give out 40 "A"s, I feel like someone is going to say: "you are honestly telling me that 40 students earned "A"s and are ready to do A work with another teacher, and that is not true. And if you set up a playful attitude, how do you give someone a C for playfulness? It is like an art class: you are not very talented, so I’ll give you a C. That is really hard for me. And I think that is what makes English hard, just in and of itself.

Mary: I think a balance is needed. I’m thinking of a certain high school teacher I know who doesn’t ever want to be serious. She shows videos 3 times a day, and then she has reading day, because it is fun. It is easy for her, they love it because they don’t have homework, they’ve done virtually nothing all semester. But there is the other extreme: all work and no play makes for a dull boy. So, I am trying to think…. I love Dayna’s ideas. Some of the other TAs in the office are having students look at social roles, and they are comparing a video from years ago, and a current movie, and comparing the different roles that characters play. And I think that is one way. Videos, kids tend to like videos, bringing some of that in. But you don’t want to never have them read anything, either. So, I don’t know.

Kevin: But reading can be playful too, right?

Lynne: The Monster at the End of the Book.

Mary: But I think a lot of a playful attitude is in how you deal with students, too. Your body language. If you are always behind a desk, and always have a formal tone, you come in and take role, and okay, open your books, we are going to discuss this now, and you never smile and you never crack a joke. Some of that playfulness is just in the way you relate.

Kevin: Do you think you could ever teach an MVE if you didn’t set up a certain amount of playfulness? Is this an essay that needs a certain amount of playfulness? [T]here is both the issue of playing with genres, and then some genres being more playful than others–so there are two questions.

Lynne: I think it is so hard to define what play is. Play does not have to be something where you are not working, or you are not being productive. When we talk about play at work, I always compare playing as children play. You know, when they are making voices for all the little toys, when they are being creative and being innovative. and that to me–why can’t you play like that? That doesn’t mean just screw around, and not get anything done. That is not play.

Kevin: Right, that is what Rouzie is trying to argue for, a serio-ludic play, one that is productive.

Lynne: And the more encouraging ideas that come out, and encouraging creativeness, as opposed to just you know, trying to pass time without being productive.

Dayna: To me the MVE could only work in a playful environment because there is no clear cut answer for what it is. It is not like an Aristotelian argument, that has a format. You can’t hand someone a template for an MVE very seriously and say, "now do this."

Kevin: Right, and if you did, would you really have an MVE? Voice one needs to go over here, voice two needs to go over here, voice three needs to go here.

Dayna: I think your students need to trust you enough with their creativity to try this and have it be successful, otherwise it won’t work.

Mary: But on the other hand, if they are doing a serious topic, if they are doing a project on abortion or even who should be President, how should this vote go, this recounting business, this is a serious topic. They are not going to sit around and–well, they might crack a few jokes. But I think of playfulness as taking a genre like a fairytale, and creating a funny little dialogue, but that is more playfulness because of the topic.

Dayna: But look at political cartoons. You don’t get any more playful than that, and yet they are incredibly insightful and serious.

Lynne: And you are right: maybe not abortion per se. Probably because there are so many people who feel so strong about it. But politics, on the other hand. . . .

Dayna: But social issues–I mean, I think there are ways to creatively discuss something seriously without trying to point fingers and laugh at the other side. And I think. . .

Mary: But I guess I’m just saying that I can see this being used very seriously. But on the other hand, you could get creative and goofy with it too. So I think it is pretty versatile. You could get down to business. It is just a platform for everyone to have their say.