Letter Writing, Italian Irishmen, and the Blog that Won't Paste
I'd like to begin my entry by noting that I had no idea that Saint Patrick was a Roman--this led me to realize that the last day of class for me this term is St. Patrick's Day, and, as I've mostly Italian blood flowing through me, I have more and more reasons for celebration on Monday the 17th.
I have to wonder how education (certainly, the study of rhetoric) would be different today if more texts were preserved during--this is for Natasha--the Dark Ages. Although I'm not so well informed that i can make any certain claims, I think the contemporary classroom may not be what it is today--perhaps based more on grammar and dialectic structures. Would health education be different than it is today, considering the way in which classical rhetoricians held athleticism so high?
The section addressing the rise of the university in the 1200s made me wonder whether 800 years is not such a long time, or if we--Western society? Humans?--are simply unable to rethink the structure of the university. Could it be argued that our system is ideal, in spite of the humans rights violations and environmental damage taking place around the world? I don't know. Perhaps change is slow. I surely don't have many answers. B&H outline what appear to be the earliest teaching licenses and the division of secular studies within the university system, and it is all surprisingly familiar (442-3). I wouldn't have thought such developments took place in the 1200s, and perhaps they disappear in Europe before they reemerge later in Western schools.
B&H note that "the rhetorical art of letter writing would become a formal discipline in the later Middle Ages" (435), and they revisit the subject at the end of the introduction. I was surprised (sure, again) that a model letter was found that informed an abused wife on how to obtain assurances from an abusive husband (444). This is interesting to me because letter writing seems to be a lost art, at least in the modern comp. classroom. I think it has been replaced by, perhaps, How to Write a Good Business Letter, or How to Write a Professional E-mail, and this may be a natural and necessary evolution. But, in a rare moment of feeling "old-fashioned," I have to say that I appreciate a well-crafted letter and believe/hope it still has a place in the world and in our classrooms. Whether or not it was a great use of our time I suppose could be debated, but I included letter-writing units in my 9th- and 11th-grade classrooms, both personal and professional letters, and sent them out from the high school's main office. (I brought the office staff doughnuts after they refused to let me help stamp the 100-plus letters.) Students were excited when they received responses and I had to remind them that, yes, you may send letters on your own time to anyone you'd like. And, no, I can't stop you from saying anything in those letters you write and send from home.
posted by Travis @ 12:57 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Ooh, there's lots to say in response to your post, Travis. First things first: beer=yes on Monday, the 17th (whoops, better stick to the academic side here!).
Second, I do wonder how contemporary education would be different if we hadn't lost as many Greco-Roman texts as we did. Think of Aristotle's "Gryllus" that Vicki referred to. Or what about Aspasia's writing (if she left any)? Would that have instigated earlier feminism? Maybe...? Would these now-lost texts have further contributed to a more democratic classroom, as you address in your second essay? Ah, if we only knew...
The university system is a funny thing -- it has stayed very consistent over the last 800 years. You wonder f perhaps things disappeared then came back -- from what I've read, this does not seem to be the case.
There are some differences -- namely, you went into University already knowing Greek and Latin. But if we went back in time or a student from then was transported to ow -- it would be very familiar.
Why education should remain constant, I can't say. Seems sort of a paradox since pedagogy and student populations have changed.
Medieval students loved beer, too. And there are plenty of letters left that are like, "Dear Mom and Dad, I need more money. For books! Yeah, books, that's the ticket."
Violence was an issue too, just as it is today. Students would riot, fight with the townsfolk -- laws had to be passed about not carrying swords to class.
And townsfolk were known to overcharge students. Thank goodness *that* doesn't happen anymore.
One more thing (because I'm feeling inspired to make more comments): you (meaning Travis) mentioned that letter writing as a practice seems to be a lost art in school systems today. And yes, I agree, but I wonder what's been lost in that per se? (I say this as someone who too highly values writing "real" letters. A long-standing joke between my friends and me is that I single-handedly bought enough stamps over the course of two years to curb the rise of stamp prices for a while; then I stopped writing and price went up to 41 cents. Anyway....)
What I am trying to say here is this: in a place like Oregon that places such an emphasis on state-wide testing, is there really a place for something as "trivial" as letter-writing (and especially with the rise of various technologies)? While I would argue that there should be a more constructed emphasis on it, many others would not.
How, then, could letter-writing be revived in a contemporary classroom?
Good questions, Sarah, and I'm going to try to give a full response without digressing. I'll focus this on the secondary level, since you mentioned testing.
The problem with Oregon's state testing isn't necessarily that it always imposes unattainable classroom requirements. (Although, that's sometimes the case, but it's not a problem when considering what forms of writing you can and can't teach.) Common Curriculum Goals for the high school level include skills like "Use precise language, action verbs, sensory details, and appropriate modifiers," and "Demonstrate an understanding of sentence construction." So, of course, to help reach these goals, we can teach letter writing. But, few teachers do.
What's difficult when trying to teach high schoolers to write well in a variety of ways is that you often struggle to find sufficient time; if I want to include a letter-writing project, well, it may mean that I don't teach other genres of writing (short fiction? business memos?), or I can't include a novel I think is really important, or a set of short stories by Flannery O'Conor. Preparing students for reading tests is very time-consuming for some teachers, and these are certainly what's called "high-stakes tests" under both the State's report card and NCLB. Some teachers spend a good deal of time trying to reach students who are just short of passing those tests, and far too few teachers are willing/able to teach writing to 130 students each day. (Writing tests are important, too, but not as much as the reading tests--another issue I can't even begin to address here!)
I didn't mean for this to be a list of complaints. What I'm saying is that, in the high school classroom, teachers need to be selective about what writing they can teach over the course of the academic year. I made a decision to use letters because I believe they have real-world application (that includes the world of business, too); and students can have fun with it. It's something that they'll carry with them when they leave, I think.
But, some 11th-grade teachers might say that their curriculum doesn't have room for it, and it might be true. And a teacher might object to having to read roughly 250 letters (we did business and personal letters), which a teacher has to do before sending letters to business owners, corporations, and family members through the school as part of a class project.
So, a teacher can do it--if he or she believes it's worth the time and effort.
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