Clio Wired (History 696)

Let me preface my comments by saying I'm in a bad mood tonight. That may have colored my reading of this but I found much of what he said to be a bit odd, even annoying.

First he mentions "the overload problem” I’ve never bought into that. What problem? We have access to information more readily it's true but I remember when it was difficult to even FIND information or the opposite when we had to face drawer after drawer of cards while I was in grad school in the late 80's now we have too much? I'll take this problem any day.

Secondly, he seems to bemoan the fact that he does "not know any campus in America that has what I would call a real intellectual community, online or otherwise, in the sense of everyone--or almost everyone--on campus engaged in a continuous conversation about ideas all the time"

but

later on he states about his own class, "The big benefit for me is the creation of a common space of class discussion that everyone can (and in my case must) contribute to, a space that prolongs the in-class discussion and enables us to pursue issues that had gotten short shrift in class."

This sounds great until he then chastises his class for being sloppy and for seeing "electronic communication as an extension of informal oral discourse." Either his in-class discussions are not very informal or he’s trying to alter the nature of that prolonged discussion. In that case I agree with his students

Finally I agree he doesn't seem very cutting edge and his statements seem to agree...

“I think online technology makes something like such a community of discussion possible..." "...Of course there may be any things going on that I do not know about."

"I wish these listserv discussions were more controlled and focused than they have been in my classes, and I think they can be when and if I learn better how to structure them."

“I would be more sympathetic to the latter view, or at least be interested in hearing more about multimedia assignments. I am not technologically adept enough to have tried any myself."

Anyway….crab crab crab.

Kurt

In response to the online intellectual community comment:
If you are going to state that no such thing really exists (yet), I think you need to define what you mean by an intellectual community and provide some specific ways that this would work well online. Otherwise, it's very important to keep in mind that notions of "community" and even "intellectual" are being altered via digital scholarship. So do these newly created types of communities exist? Or are online intellectual communities not part of this picture either?--Amy

Kurt and Amy covered most of my first impressions of Graff. However, he deserves a few more comments.

Graff's own work is described as "centered on how for most students and members of the general population, academia in general and literary studies in particular are obscure and opaque."

However, Graff complains about the lack of communication within the classroom because it is 'sloppy and imprecise'. I would argue that, as the professor, he has the most control over communication within the classroom that could enlighten students about academia as well as literary studies.

Instead, he criticizes technology that does inspire communication because it is not as 'controlled or focused' as he would like.
But, he admits that he needs to learn how to use it better.

This translates as: He wants his students to do better work but he is not willing to improve the structure within which they could do better work.

Okay, so we have an academic, who teaches English, complaining about poor commnication within the classroom.

Then, we have the same academic, who is obviously interviewed because he is supposedly knowledgable about education in the liberal arts, challenging the benefits of technology to higher education.

My reply to Graff would be, you cannot create an intellectual community within an entire university until you have created a smaller intellectual community within each classsroom. Before I would pay any attention to his advice (or lack of it), I suggest he takes care of his own individual classrooms even if it does require learning about new technology and its uses. I feel sorry for his students.

Good point Maureen, it was interesting to find out that he was an English professor. I've read the article twice now and I'm still not sure where he stands overall. On the one hand he believes all "technology" has done for higher education is to improve the registration process yet he notes that technology has the potential to creat "real intellectual communities", something that hasn't happened since the sit-ins of the Vietnam era. I sense a bit of a Vietnam-era bias? Anyway, he's quite a hum-bug, kind of like Kurt when he's grumpy. I did agree with his comments regarding how students writing to listservs see them as "an extension of informal oral discourse." I've had to fight that tendency in my writings in the class all semester. Why is this?

Scott

I'm feeling much happier today since I completed the first draft of my paper due on Wednesday for Dr. Scully.

But I still feel the same way about that article.

As for the informal nature of this type of writing perhaps it stems from the informal nature of Instant Messaging. In some ways blogs like this feel like an extension of IM. I've noticed a difference though when we have to post essays such as the web design review or any project that stands alone. No one seems confused about how formal those should be.

Seems like what we have here is a failure to communicate.....
Graff needs more experience on the Internet learning how to use it effectively in his classroom, and a kick in the pants from students to be more effective in front of his class. Like Dr. Kelly said, "academics" are not fond of change...and the older they are the less likely they are to embrace change.

I have rarely questioned what the level of formality should be on graded projects posted on the web, be they on Blog or elswhere. DUH, they're graded! I assume they have to be grammatically accurate and somewhat formal, reflecting the formal nature of academia in general. But when I am requested to post a comment or general reaction to another student's work, I do wonder how formal I should be, even though my comments might be "graded" too. I tend to lean towards being more informal than a project blog, but perhaps not as informal as a personal email. The rest of you seem to be in agreement, judging by your remarks.

Professors should openly state the standards they require, and they should be realistic about those standards. Students should ask if they're not sure what to do. Graff sounds like he doesn't know what he wants!

I was interested Graff's age when I first read his article and then Scott's reference to Viet Nam definitly turned on a light bulb. And, if I can successfully cut and paste, voila:

Gerald Graff wrote a 1963 dissertation on poetics (it was not yet called "literary theory"), and his scholarship and publication for the first twenty years of his career focused on debates over the nature of literature and its relation to society, ethics, and politics, with a strongly critical attitude toward deconstruction and poststructuralism. Then in the early 80s he became more sympathetic to those new trends and his interests began to shift to issues of teaching and curriculum. PROFESSING LITERATURE (1987) established him as a historian and analyst of the college teaching of English, followed by BEYOND THE CULTURE WARS, which argued that the best use literature departments could make of culture war debates was to incorporate them into our teaching. Most recently he has turned to the obscurity and opacity that still envelope literary studies and academia for most students and members of the general population, a theme taken up in CLUELESS IN ACADEME: HOW SCHOOLING OBSCURES THE LIFE OF THE MIND (Yale UP April 2003).

Interesting, I may have to buy his book.