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January 29, 2005
the believing [thing]
janet emig, in the web of meaning, presents the summary of elbow's believing/doubting game i find the least insulting of all those i've read, maybe even moreso than elbow's itself—i can't honestly remember right now if i've been to the source or not, only that the idea usually bothers me. emig says:
Essentially, with the believing game, we begin by accepting the author's or initiator's premise or proposition as our own, and live inside her paradigm for the length of the argument. With the doubting game, we find ourselves a congenial vantage and peer critically into the paradigm. Elbow suggests that we can gain the most in any intellectual enterprise by playing both games, but that it is cognitively more profitable to play the believing game first. (155)
and that makes sense to me. that's productive and good. what isn't--and what almost all of my experience with this oft-referenced "game" system has seemed to advise--is using the term to talk only to/about teachers encountering student texts. in that context--not as an "also," because i've never seen it as "intellectual endeavors including student texts," but in isolation--it's always struck me as incredibly insulting. mostly it's the term "game" i can't get over, & the insincerity it almost can't help but imply. "i, the mighty teacher, am going to play a little game; i'm going to pretend to believe that you're not an idiot and know what you're talking about, for the 20 minutes it takes me to read & respond to this piece, & then, game over, i'm going to return to my normal mental state wherein i know i'm great & you're stupid." is this how it looks when he does it? or is this just the resonance of the horrible things that have been done with his idea, which in emig's summary seems highly useful & not insulting at all. its ramifications are all about the context of its application, though; in emig's summary, this "game" is a reading-tool we should be using in our own scholarly work and teaching to our students, not a farce to enact almost as a weapon against them only when evaluating (and stigmatizing) "novice" work.
(x-posted to compositionism)
Posted by ttobryan at January 29, 2005 03:58 PM
Comments
Wow, Tyra. I read this very differently. I take the believing/doubting distinction to serve as a way of talking about the veritable attitudes we take to (broadly defined) textual encounters. If we lead with an attitude of belief (that we might actually find something hopeful and promising), then we are much better off than if we lead with an attitude of skepticism, resistance, or doubt. It made me think of Bartholomae and Petrosky's similar setup of reading with the grain and against the grain (of the text). But now you've got me re-thinking the whole plot.
Posted by: Derek at January 29, 2005 05:57 PM
this sounds like a take similar to emig's productive one. i'm suspicious that i first encountered this idea from someone who was busy decontextualizing it in really negative ways (i suspect i might know who, too, but i can't find it and i have to stop looking for the time being!), that that tainted my reading of others' mentions of the idea thereafter. i'm actually quite encouraged by emig, mostly because i know that an awful lot of people love elbow, the "believing game" is one of the elbow-isms i run across most often, & the disconnect there has bothered me for years.
Posted by: tyratae at January 29, 2005 06:24 PM
FWIW, in my Theory and Practice class this semster, we're reading concurrently with a first-year composition course and using the Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing (Ramage, Bean, Johnson). In chapter 2 the authors present the believing and doubting games as a "brief writing project" for students. The authors provide a list of 10 topics and students are directed to spend 15 minutes writing from the believing p.o.v. and then 15 minutes from the doubting p.o.v. An example of a student essay from both p.o.v.s is included.
At least in this example then, it's a student-centered writing activity.
Posted by: Marcia at February 8, 2005 03:02 AM
I thought I left a comment here last night on this post, but now it's gone. Hmm?
Posted by: Marcia at February 9, 2005 02:22 AM
And, now it's back. Weird browser behavior. Sorry to clutter things up!!!
Posted by: Marcia at February 9, 2005 02:25 AM