A Good Crot is Hard to Find by Tita French Baumlin is a piece of writing out of the norm. This piece had several compelling aspects in it. I found it incredible that such an assignment could be given to the class, where students are asked to write in "Grammar B" and find a technique that suited them. The fact that they thought it would be an easy assignment interests me. Students always say how tedious writing can be and how they want to write their own way. But given a situation where they have the opportunity to write in fragments, crots, personal techniques they hit a wall. I never really thought about how we are "so locked into traditions." It sort of makes sense though, I mean we've learned since early schooling days to write this way and complete your thought and add your thesis in here. I feel that if more students kept a journal where they wrote whatever they wanted they might have had an easier time completing this assignment. I know from personal experience having a journal was nice for me because last year we were required to write a page in our journal everyday. But we knew that nobody would be reading it, it was just a chance for us to write and express ourselves.
This text was different and none of it made me feel uneasy or resistant but rather I remained open-minded and excepted the differences. I like the fact that students were helped by the teachers example but made up their own ways to complete the assignment. "A Good Crot is Hard to Find," it may take practice but do not be scared by it's irregularities.
That was really good. We had two different perspectives on how to write about this essay and i thought your was really good. i liked how you talked about traditions and i completely agree. We do things according to how we were taught and never really out of the norm. Great response!
ReplyDeleteI like your perspective on looking at the students, how did they think that would have been an easy assignment. I know last year in my AP Lit class we had to do some free form poetry and it was so hard because sometimes there was no structure to go off of. Your analysis brought up some good questions from this idea of getting caught in the tradition style of writing. Are we unable to return to Baumlin's creativity? That was a great perspective and your approach was interesting; being able to see yours and Alex's blog are able to actually leave me with some more questions than I had before!
ReplyDeleteAlison, thanks for your thoughts. The students' responses were very interesting indeed. In fact, you could write an entire analysis essay on their reactions to various stages of the assignment. They thought this was just what they wanted- freedom to write just any old thing. But what was it that they wanted. Why was it hard to write in Grammar B? Why do the students go to the teacher and say, "Just tell me what you want"? Do students ever say that at other times, or is this situation specific? What does this say about students and the course of their academic studies?
ReplyDeleteJust another note, this is a little short, so you receive 5/10.
ReplyDelete