Homework Sucks!

My daughter does not love "English" homework (well, they still call it "Reading" homework and "Writing" homework in 2nd grade). She does all of the math and science homework before she will touch the writing.

However, today I asked her to write a thank you note to her "Auntie Tina" (really a family friend) who recently set her a set of Jibbitz for her Crocs. I was hoping to get her to eke out a few sentences. After the requisite "thank you" sentence, I figured she'd give one more detail and sign off. Instead, she asked, "Can I make this a thank you note AND a letter?" Shocked, I said, "Sure!" She wrote and wrote -- she had 8 full sentences about her life, her friends, her pet mouse, etc.

Naturally, as an English professor I want to know why she wrote with abandon in the Auntie Tina thank you note, yet resists writing any more than the bare minimum for her homework. Then the $10 word I learned in grad school hit me: pseudotransactionality.

Students know that homework is not transactional -- much assigned writing goes into a teacher's file cabinet. Most homework does not address an actual rhetorical situation, with an audience who reads it to learn more or to solve a problem. My daughter senses this as young as 2nd grade!

Yes, there is value in practice, so homework certainly serves a purpose. But I try as much as I can to make my homework--the "practice" I assign--as transactional as possible. I'm asking my advanced comp students to post their daily writing homework to a blog so that it can (potentially) go to a larger public audience that could respond (instead of piling up in my bottom drawer). In my professional writing class, which is really all about practicing the genres of professional writing, my students are "practicing" with real, live people. They all have local agencies and organizations that need professional writing projects completed this fall. They know they are getting students, and they are willing to take that chance. My students know that agency directors and all of their clients will read their writing. So they are working! It's practice, but it's transactional.

Going Back to Cali(‘s Prop 87)

Back to my investigation into Prop 87. I want to know something about it as a voter, and I am asking my students to focus on Fall 2006 campaign news in my Advanced Comp class.

NOTE TO STUDENTS: What I am doing here on my blog is NOT what I am asking you to do for homework. It is similar, but not quite the same.

Anyhow, I posted my thoughts about the main “No on 87” site, so now I will take a look at the main “Yes on 87” site.

Let me make one overall observation about the initial look of the two sites (this is something that MY STUDENTS will do when they compare news source sites). The No campaign has a more staid, more professional look, with more photos of real people. The Yes campaign site employs more flash (in the technical and metaphorical sense). Instead of photos, this site has a lot of images and graphics. The font is also much larger on the yes site. For example, the link “get involved” is very prominent on the Yes site and harder to find on the No site.

When I pulled up the Yes site, the first thing I noticed was a box with multiple images fading in and out. The images mix graphics and large font text. The first few images that appeared noted how much big oil companies make and how they deserve to pay their fair share.

After three of those appeared, a new min-theme of images faded in and out of the box. This next series told me how much other states like Alaska, Louisiana, and (even) Texas tax oil production. These four messages use the classic “Bandwagon” appeal: if those people are doing it, we should to.” This is known as one of the logical fallacies. In other words, there is no sound reasoning to back up the idea that if that guy is doing it, you should too. A smart person needs more than that to be convinced to vote for something.

I should point out that I am almost surely going to vote “Yes” on 87, but that does not stop me from laying their rhetorical techniques bare.

For example, when I googled “Proposition 87 California,” the first link that came up was “Yeson87.” The text below noted that the Wall Street Journal “fires up debate on California Energy debate.” Skimming that (as we all tend to do online – we tend to skim rather than read) I read “Wall Street Journal” and thought that they were endorsing the Yes side, which would certainly be a coup for the “yes” side because of the Wall Street Journal’s prestige. With that idea in my head, I started to read the “article” that was posted on the main page about prestigious people (a former Clinton staffer, a UCLA professor) who do endorse 87.

However, there was not a readily available link to the Wall Street Journal article. Upon rereading the Google text, I wonder if the WSJ article was not really a pro-87 text. I’m not sure if that was an intentional slight of hand, but I must say that it worked on me, and I am a pretty savvy reader . . .

Tune in next time as I investigate what the Wall Street Journal really said and how they said it.