Cinnabar and Alabaster

passages (genre)
110. training in lit crit preps us to "map the genres"--as if they're a finite set?; our naming betrays our attitudes--the "broad area of discourse" we call "nonfiction prose" reveals our "disrespect for communities removed from our own, because we lump all their distinct prose under this imprecise label" defined by negation of what we value more. "if we look closely at our capacity for generic mapping, we may find other highly cultivated understandings that we have derived from our literary studies and that we can effectively draw upon to make ourselves better scholars and teachers of composition"--the ideal is to "bridge the gap" & become "scholars of language"
111. "a theory of genre defines the terms of the relationship between reader and writer, speaker and listener. readers and writers are partners, just as reading and writing, speaking and listening are connected, interactive processes. we can understand the importance of generic considerations most clearly from instances of failed communication"; "the forms of writing within a particular intellectual community manifest modes of thinking within that community. a lyric poet learns to behave like a lyric poet by reading and hearing lyric poetry. when the poet writes his [sic] own lyric poem, he [sic] creates something that never existed before but that bears a family resemblance to other lyric poems. without that family resemblance and the mannerisms that go with it, the piece of writing is anomalous and communication is at risk, unless we can identify a resemblance to another family"
112. how it is: "a genre is more than a bundle of conventional details about the spacing of words on the page, footnote format, and other arbitrary matters. the configurations that form our surface definition of genre have a heuristic potential"; "those of us who specialize in the analysis of discourse know that the better a writer understands the conventions of a particular genre, the more creative the writer can be in breaking the rules for effect"; "conventions are expectations in the minds of readers. readers who are members of the same intellectual community share these expectations because of a history of common experiences"; fish & "the authority of interpretive communities"--we recognize what we see b/c of our community affiliations & experiences;
113. "genre conventions are constructed by a community that has practiced writing particular kinds of texts. in all disciplines texts are made, not decoded." this might be profound, but i'm not sure i know what she means when she says it; this is too, or at least it sounds cool--> "the conventions of report writing are in a sense theatrical techniques to help scientists maintain the objective stance"
115. an extract for the youth on why it matters:

since generic conventions pertain to knowledgeable behavior within a defined context, each genre has its own serious faux pas. a scientist who writes, 'the data indicates' instead of 'the data indicate' is not simply committing an error in subject/verb agreement, nor is he [sic] merely showing ignorance of latin neuter plural forms. he [sic] is telling other scientists that he [sic] is inexperienced with data, that he [sic] has not worked with or reported data, and that he [sic] is therefore not an experienced member of the scientific community

116. studying generic constraints "expands [students'] understanding of genre as a concept" & "analyzing and practicing the generic rituals of a number of communities helps students develop the intellectual mobility of educated people" is that what we have?; questions & metaphors (disciplinarity): "the field notebook of an anthropologist...will record answers to questions that many of us in literature would rarely think to ask"; "critical thinking means making choices, asking the right questions"

passages (sliding into collaboration)
121. "our community is defined by conversation"; rorty & culture as conversation: "our goal as scholars is to keep the conversation going. our goal as teachers is to guide students into new communities and to help novices gain an authentic voice in our conversations. we enter a new community when we learn to talk with its citizens. and we learn to talk with them when we understand the generic properties of their conversations. rorty emphasizes dialectic, not necessarily because dialectic will lead to truth, but because it keeps the lines of communication open"
122. one of our jobs: to "provide our students with systematic instruction and practice for conversing with each other," to "create an environment that simulates that of the academic community at large" here's me taking issue w/this, & remembering that 1983 was a long time ago; "to create such an environment, we should educate students to respond productively and critically to each others' work in progress. these experiences in collaborative learning help students become socialized into the academic community....but students must grow to value something else as well: the communication of reasoned belief. students must learn to express ideas coherently and logically, to draw inferences, to suggest analogies, and to refer to appropriate authorities. liberal education is a process of learning how scholars behave, in the general academic community and in the smaller social groupings of their disciplines"
124. "students need help in learning to converse rather than compete. students are too little accustomed to listening to each other or to reading each other's work with attention. without actual conversations about one's work, a novice writer is at a particular disadvantage. the lonely beginner condemned to the linearity of ink on the blank page hears all the wrong voices"; "experienced writers know how to imagine a reader who is 'partially a reflection of themselves and functions as a critical and productive collaborator--a collaborator who has yet to love their work.' students need the actual experience of sharing work in progress if they are ever to internalize this essential dialogic" (quoting sommers from 'revision strategies'); this part is important: "collaborative learning does not imply coauthorship. in fact, as we well know, colleagueship leads to a greater sense of authority and individual responsibility for one's work. when we share our work with colleagues, we proudly acknowledge their help, not simply to repay an honest debt, but to connect ourselves to the community of those who have helped us"
125. & this part is creepy: "our discipline makes us especially equipped to understand otherness. as literary critics, we spend much of our time mapping fictional worlds, so that we can better understand the strangers who live there. as composition scholars, we have assumed the related task of mapping the universe of discourse. i am suggesting that we abandon the fiefdoms and guard towers...[so as to] draw more accurate maps" which will enable "our students and ourselves" to become "more confident explorers...to the fascinating and exotic communities across the sea" yes, she actually says "exotic." question is, how much does my discomfort with this paint the other things she says in an unsavory light?