Chapter 2 – “Cognitive Development and Learning Theory” (24-36)

• “Intelligent Confusion”
  • about epistemology: form “ignorant certainty” (dogmatic certainty) to “intelligent confusion” (contingent, situational, contextual ways of knowing)
  • the underlying assumption: “answers are contingent and knowledge is contextual”
  • 2 types of problems:
    • well-structured: have single correct answers
    • ill-structured
  • William Perry (1999): Forms of Ethical and Intellectual Development in the College Years
    • scheme and 9 cognitive stages or “positions”
      • position 3: accept uncertainty as legitimate, but assumes that the Authority Answer has not been found
      • position 4: perceive legitimate uncertainty
      • position 5: knowledge and values as contextual and relativistic
      • position 6: personal commitment
• Cognitive Challenges outside the classroom
  • empathy: to internalize another’s point of view
  • pedagogy practice for class discussions:
    • one must restate the preceding speaker’s point before making their own points
  • theoretical framework: in need of one to continuously stepping outside of one’s own view
• William Perry and Composition Scholarship
  • Curtis and Herrington: “Writing Development in the College Years: Bu Whose Definition?”
    • discusses the standardized assessment
• Neuroplasticity
  • fixed mindsets vs growth mindsets
  • the brain can change its own structure and function through thought and activity
  • My notes: The two pages remind me of the TOEFL typeface project. (1) The typeface persona studies assume the inherited and fixed relations between a typeface and the persona. It is as the fixed relations between the Author and the Text. (2) With the notion of neuroplasticity and emotional experiences, I see how the brains can possibly accept the typeface, and fonts react with the experiences.
• Curriculum Development

Chapter 3 – ”It’s the Privilege of Wisdom to Listen.” (37-54)

• Intro
  • framework of this chapter:
    • Krista Ratcliffe: rhetorical listening
    • Kay Halasek: Bakhtin
    • Mariolina Slavatori: reading and composition, reading and its responsibility
    • Emmanuel Levinas (2006): “humanity of the Other,” from The Humanism of the Other
    • Martha Nussbaum: “empathy and compassion” from Upheavals of Thoughts: the Intelligence of Emotion (2001)
  • purpose: to replace argument and assertion in the composition classroom with “listening, empathy, and reflection”
    • students can be sympathetic to the other.
• Listening and Silence as a Rhetorical Art
  • Ratcliffe’s definition of listening: “a stance of openness that a person may choose to assume in relation to any person, text, or culture”
• Listening and Bakhtin
  • Kay Halasek: A Pedagogy of Possibility (1999)
    • avoid closure and opposition
    • dialectic vs dialogic
• Empathy and a “Radical Generosity” Toward “the Other”
  • Levinas: the same goes toward the Other.
• Listening and Critical Thinking Theory
• Listening: An Active, Generative, Constructive Process
  • definition of “listening:” “an active, generative, constructive process that positions writers in an open, collaborative, and dialogical orientation toward the world and others” informed by empathy and compassion.
  • Costa and Kallick (2008): the ability to listen as the highest forms of intelligent behavior
    • “overcoming egocentrism”
    • metacognition: thinking about thinking
  • pedagogical practice: reflective essay, to privilege listening
• The Goal of FYC and Transfer of Knowledge
  • Traditional view: FYC prepares students to develop skills that can be transferred to other courses (PROBLEMATIC)
    • writing as a skill vs writing as a complex activity
  • listening, empathy, and reflection: offer transferrable skills and habits of mind
    • or habits of mind become transferrable skills, too
  • transfer skills vs transfer disposition or “habits of mind”
  • David Perkins and Gavriel Salomon:
    • culture of demand (passive activity) vs culture of opportunity (open-minded)
    • Randi Engle: framing strategies and learning
      • more like a discussion frame and framework
• Notes about further readings
  • ==On Attention==
    • Cheryl Glenn and Krista Ratcliffe: silence and listening as a rhetoric tactic to practice attention.
    • Attention can be studied as active engagement
      • “productive silence and rhetorical listening… help prepare a person for eloquence” (2011, 3)
      • Attention becomes the preparation of the preparation. Silence and listening as mental activities prepare for verbal activities. Attention is the preparation for mental activities for silence and listening. Attention is more like a status switch–either on or off.
    • The above discussion on attention as the preparation for mental activities can be related to Pat Belanoff’s (2011) “Silence, Reflection, Literacy, Learning, and Teaching”
      • “Silence (inhabited by mediation, reflection, contemplation, metacognition, and thoughtfulness) provides one lens through which to see the interlace of literacy; action (response, conversation) provides another lens, but both lenses are pointed at exactly the same object” (422)
      • Several concepts here: (1) verbal actions (i.e. response and conversation) are actions; (2) silence is not equivalent to inaction (we see the mental activities); (3) attention offers the possibilities to the mental actions in silence. When both verbal actions and silence involve changes (mentally and bodily changes), attention is the context about changes. Attention is more like energy.
      • Regarding “rhetoric and energy,” refer to “A Hoot in the Dark: The Evolution of General Rhetoric” by George Kennedy (1992)
  • ==On Deconstruction==
    • Halasek: Bakhtin’s dialogue to maintain difference and diversity
      • de Man: the heterogeneity of one voice with regard to any other.
    • Halasek’s work can be read as about the relations between deconstruction and possibilities/diversity/otherness. Thus deconstruction is an ethical paradigm, since it continues destabilizing whatever the central assertion it achieves. In other words, the Truth is forever delayed. But deconstruction does not deny the value in affirmative research. It just reminds the researchers the possibilities beyond this affirmation.
  • ==One Current Traditional Rhetoric==
    • the nature of writing expertise and how it is related to genre proficiency (Bazerman 1988; Beaufort 2007; Carter 1990; Freedman and Adam 1996; Russell 2002; Smit 2004; Soliday 2011; Sommers and Saltz 2004; Winsor 2000)
      • They can be used to explore how the genre of current traditional rhetoric becomes the nature of the FYC writing expertise.
    • Essays challenge the notion that the FYC helps prepare transferrable skills to other courses
      • (Freedman 1995; Petraglia 1995; Wardle 2009; Yancey, Roberson, and Taczak 2014)
      • If the skills are not transferrable, then the meaning of current traditional rhetoric should be question and more importantly, the historical origin of it should be studied.
  • ==Frame and Framework==
    • David Perkins and Gavriel Salomon: cited Randi Engle
      • Read Perkins and Salomon’s piece first; and Engle’s second.
      • “expansive framing” (enable transfer of knowledge) vs “bounded framing”
  • ==Readings==
    • Glenn and Ratcliffe (2011)
    • Ratcliffe: Rhetorical Listening
    • Pat Belanoff’s (2011) “Silence, Reflection, Literacy, Learning, and Teaching”
    • George Kennedy (1992) “A Hoot in the Dark: The Evolution of General Rhetoric”
    • Kay Halasek (1999): A Pedagogy of Possibility
    • Mariolina Salvatori (1996): “Conversations with Texts: Reading in the Teaching of Composition,” College English 58 (4): 440-54
    • Emmanuel Levinas (2006): The Humanism of the Other
    • David Perkins and Gavriel Salomon: “Knowledge to Go: A Motivational and Dispositional View of Transfer”