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07/27/2004 Archived Entry: "jerk pedagogy"

Sometimes I feel like a founder of "jerk pedagogy" - the pointing out of how everything and everyone else is sooooooooooooo wrong (and a close friend called me a jerk not too long ago...).
I tried this morning to finally unsubscribe to TechRhet. Wouldn't work. Not the majordomo command, not the web interface. I'm stuck! Thank goodness the email address subscribed to TechRhet will vanish in two weeks. But until then, I'm stuck with a continuing thread on teaching....homonyms. In the spirit of jerk pedagogy, I will enact the "smart ass" feature of its core and note that this request started it all:

> I've gotta come up with a sample lesson that explains how to distinguish
between pairs of words that are NOT caught by spellcheckers - eg,
they're/their/there. (OK, so that's a triplet, not a pear - er, pair.)
>
> I've come up with the following (pitifully small) list, and I was
wondering if youse guys could think of others??
>
> its/it's
> weather/whether
> they're/their/there

> I'm looking for items that would actually confuse people - I don't
> think something like pear/pair would, for instance . . .
>

To which we get suggestions, and of course, useless debate when someone writes that he doesn't teach this stuff at all:

If a student writes prose in which homonyms are obvious patterns of
error, isn't it our job as teachers to help them out? Just because
they're supposed to learn it in high school doesn't constitute a reason
to ignore them, does it? I'm not picking on you, [name not included here], whoever you are,
just thinking that as self-describe rhetoricians, we are ALL teachers of
language, linguistics, writing, and communication, and just because
we're capable of far more than error correction doesn't eliminate it
from our jobs. Or does it?

Ya. Big deal stuff here. Or is it? And what does this have to do with the basic principles TechRhet was supposedly founded on (or its predecessor ACW-L was)? You could turn this discussion into a demonstration of chora (the homonym as invention strategy) or the puncept on the Web (a la the wonderful punning of the Marx Brothers or Krazy Kat; didn’t I make that into an assignment in Writing About Cool?). But is it silly to make this into a TechRhet discussion? To quote Napoleon Dynamite: "What do you frigging think? Heck Yeah!"

Now to really encapsulate jerk pedagogy, I would note that this discussion could benefit by a little theoretical observation into the relationship between homonyms and say, differance, as well as the potential for rhetorical invention (Derrida, derriere, yadda yadda yadda doo). But since I have tried that route in the past with this list and been met with a barrage of “NO WAY JOSE” and “ARE YOU CRAZY THESE STUDENTS WILL NEVER GET A JOB IF THEY DO THAT,” I’ll just be content to hit delete and wait for the email address to vanish into cyberspace, where it will sit unwatched and unused and only exist as a remnant in archive.org’s database…and and and and and and and (wait, that ain’t no homonym, that’s repetition!).
There is only they’re there.
Ignatz, why is lenguage?

I just FGI'ed figgy pudding, since that song popped into my mind upon reading the FGI proposal. FGI is a good corrective to the ALA Information Literacy statement; I can see the presentation title in the program now:

"Information Literacy: FGIt About It!"

God, what a disgustingly bad Friends pun.

Posted by Clancy @ 07/30/2004 12:08 PM EST

Oh my god, collin.

figgy is the best thing to happen in a long, long time.

Posted by j to the e to the n n y @ 07/29/2004 01:48 AM EST

Check out the mail page for that FGI. Several folks give the maintainer crap about his "split infinitive."

Sigh.

Posted by cbd @ 07/29/2004 12:24 AM EST

Weight a minuet. Hear eye yam weighting to here what the rite ant sir is, and your yam ring a bout "chora"? Witch my spiel czech doesn't wreck a nighs, buy the weigh.

Seriously, though. Brad, those are questions best answered by the 21st century version of RTFM:
http://www.fuckinggoogleit.com/
My proposal is that we coin the word figgy (FGI) to describe said questions/discussions...

cgb

ps. did anyone ever post an answer to the roast question?

Posted by collin @ 07/28/2004 11:20 PM EST

Don't make me come up there!

Posted by cbd @ 07/28/2004 12:18 PM EST

"up your...."

wow. snap snap. maybe your close friend was right. jerkagogy.

Posted by j e n n y @ 07/28/2004 11:47 AM EST

up your....

Posted by j @ 07/28/2004 10:38 AM EST

So, where's my SCSI card?

Posted by cbd @ 07/28/2004 10:36 AM EST

Thanks for all the roast responses! I love this list! What a great community!!

-patty

Posted by Patty @ 07/27/2004 11:01 PM EST

Patty,

Would you post the answers you got to that roast question? We're also cooking roast on Sunday.

-Jim

Posted by Jim @ 07/27/2004 11:00 PM EST

Dear WPA,

I'm cooking a roast this Sunday. Should I broil it? Please reply off list.

-patty

Posted by Patty @ 07/27/2004 10:59 PM EST

The many C&W-type folks who like C&W because of the sense of "community" ensure that TechRhet is little more than a feelgood exercise (I assume; I've been off it a few years). The foregrounded inclusiveness, the I'm-not-picking-on-you stuff, the unwillingness to pick one side or the other.

As far as your inability to unsubscribe...IMO all the Interversity stuff has always worked sorta, at best.

While we're bitching about email lists, we also need a name for the phenomenon of people sending questions to lists that are best answered by (1) a Google search; (2) a third party email; (3) a telephone call. For example, today's question on WPA-L about how to get to the Daedalus Group offices. WTF is that? Call the effin Daedalus people. OK?

Maybe I should post a note to WPA asking if anyone has seen the SCSI card I want to put into my new courseware server. And what the status of my PowerMac G5 order is....

Posted by cbd @ 07/27/2004 07:24 PM EST