Mentor texts. . .

The whole addition of the Blog of the Week (said, of course, in Abby’s voice from now unto eternity), had made this experience feel much more high-stakes. Why not just intentionally underperform so that when mine is inevitably not selected I can say, “Oh, I wasn’t even trying anyway,” and bypass the shame of never being chosen as an exemplar. In reality the stakes are the same, as low as ever, and the blogs remain simply a place for reflection and perhaps brief conversation. However, these thoughts have led me to wonder what the impact this sort of selection of exemplary work for sharing with the class has on students. There is, of course, the excitement and pride of having your work selected, but what about those whose writing is never held up, even anonymously? No one else may notice, but those students will. Does this encourage them to strive harder, or simply leave them in the place I arrived of why even bother? It depends on the student of course, but the factors leading to that are complex, and likely change moment to moment with little predictability.

While reading Hilary Janks’s “Domination, Access, Diversity and Design: a synthesis for critical literacy education,” I was really struck by the remarks about the intersectional tension between discursive domination and access to those dominant discourses. Where is, and equally as important, how do we navigate the fine line between privileging existing structures of discourse, bulwarking their cultural and social hegemony, and giving students access to these structures while still elevating their own diverse discursive modes? It is a tension that I don’t think we have devoted enough time to unpacking, nor does Janks (2000) really offer up a strong answer.

I want to situate this conversation specifically in the context of the selection of mentor texts and using sentence exemplars (both student and otherwise) as models for what good writing, or proper mechanical usage looks like. When we as teachers select a mentor texts, we are privileging that specific style and usage in the minds of our students, especially when those students are not particularly widely read outside of class. This is done with the explicit intent of shaping their own writing to mirror that of the mentor text. There is no doubt this fulfills the access component of critical literacy, but how is it addressing dominance? Especially when we add in the notion of sentence stalking, or looking for specific linguistic patterns that have been deemed desirable. I wonder at how much this method of instruction conflates aesthetic preference and mastery or fluency in written language.

I think to my own writing here, which as been heavily influenced by many years working with the literature of Japan. When I don’t restrain myself, my sentences tend to become long, even unwieldy, with excessive use of commas that skirts, or transgresses into the realm of run-ons as I try to fit all of my thoughts between a rather arbitrarily determined start and end point. They can become mazes in this way, and I myself often lose track of where I started and where I am going by the time I reach the much needed period. I am often scolded by readers who have instructed me to write in APA style that I am overly wordy, needlessly poetic, and at times plain nonsensical. Trim it, they say. However, when done right and heavily edited, there is a flow to my style of writing that really captures the essence of my thoughts. It is true, too, of the exact opposite. Writing short, concise sentences, complete thoughts with little to no embellishment, can have quite the impact. Indeed, I value them both, and in my classes I would expect students to also develop similar biases. My aesthetic preferences will be passed on no different from other values and customs handed down across generations. There is, though, no prescriptive component to my selection beyond my own preference for what looks good. In the end, all style guides and formats come down to that. Often it merely comes down to what the creators appreciate or value in writing. Who are these individuals and groups that decide what is APA, MLA, Chicago? Why do they have this power?


What I am coming to, I think, is that I don’t particularly like the idea of instructor selected mentor texts as a method for grammatical instruction in a writing course. If writing is an art, it is much like learning to paint through mimicry of the Masters. Sure, it works, but. . .?


Resource: My suggested resource for the week is Edward Said's "Orientalism." What does this have to do with writing, you may ask. Well, honestly, very little. However, it is where I cut my teeth on the entire notion of Eurocentrism and how certain modes of discourse have become overwhelmingly dominant to the point of erasing others. I think it is a good read for thinking about why we choose what we do to act as exemplars for up and coming thinkers.