Experiments in Collaborative Pedagogy: Paper Proposals

Two weeks ago, the students in my Orpheus seminar introduced their preliminary paper proposals to the class. Last year, I had many of the same students in Writing About Music, the first year graduate course where we walk them through a paper proposal, outline, first draft, and final draft.  What a difference a year makes!

These proposals are understandably more fully developed than those I receive in Writing About Music. They include proposals to examine Rameau's cantata Orphée in relation to his Traité de l'harmonie, to connect Orphic works by the relationship between the first and second deaths of Eurydice, and to analyze the music in Moulin Rouge and Bono's "The Ground Beneath Her Feet."

As mentioned in this previous post, I am writing along with my seminar, as part of an experiment in what I might call collaborative pedagogy. I was not exempt from sharing my proposal with the class, and I was the last person to present. I am fortunate that my class is full of spirited and intelligent people who readily received my own proposal and gave me honest feedback.

I won't share the entirety of my proposal here, but I'm looking to connect Joseph Campbell's "total science of mythology" to more holistic musicological study of Orphic operas. My general premise is that rather than viewing these operas as "settings" of mythical narratives, we should see them as extensions of mythical experience, and no less culturally relevant than Ovid's or Virgil's narratives. If anything, I am advocating for a more ethnomusicological study of Orphic operas, and I'm hoping that the approaches used by mythologists will prove useful for musicologists.

I read my proposal to the class, and in that context, I was painfully aware of my reliance upon jargon. I wrote my proposal in academese, using phrases like "epistemological quandaries."  One of my students remarked that he understood roughly 75% of it, but wanted me to paraphrase it with more clarity. What a gift to be confronted with a group of very intelligent and invested people who have no ulterior motives except to understand!  I realized that I have freedom here--I'm not submitting this proposal for acceptance at a conference. I'm merely communicating with a group of like-minded individuals about something that piqued my curiosity!

There is a false dichotomy between research and teaching. The blame for this lies on both sides of the equation, but I posit (to speak in academese) that we need not choose. My seminar has become a forum for constructive feedback--not quite peer review, but it has its own merits. I challenge them to critique their teacher’s work, and through this they practice confidence in their own ideas. I may not get feedback from “experts,” but there are plenty of avenues for that within my field.  The integrity of my project rests on nothing more than what it contributes to the group of people who are likewise trying to amplify what they've learned in order to reach beyond it.

Let's stop for a second. I'm going to repeat that last bit:

"The integrity of my project rests on nothing more than what it contributes to the group of people who are likewise trying to amplify what they've learned in order to reach beyond it."

I think we have largely lost this sense of wonder as part of what shapes "academic conversations." We are too busy publishing (or perishing) to remember that at the heart of academic inquiry there is a core belief in the value of knowledge. "Sapere aude, " if you feel more comfortable with that.  But we shouldn't need to validate this quest with Kant and Foucault in order to understand how important it is. We all have the power to be both the guardians and harbingers of thoughts.

I'm grateful to be on this journey with my seminar. I've already reshaped my proposal, narrowing it to a more digestible scope, whittling away at the academic pretense so that my students will benefit from whatever the finished product happens to be. I have not started writing it yet, but I already have the first footnote:

1. I dedicate this paper to students in my Fall 2015 Orpheus in Music seminar, who keep me grounded in the ongoing battle between my role as an academic and the reasons I chose this field in the first place.

Experiments: Writing to Teach

The title of this post tips its hat to the late William Zinsser's influential book, Writing to Learn, a tome that helped instill of a love of writing and learning in me at an impressionable age. Along with the work of Peter Elbow and the wonderful experiences I had at the Bard Institute of Writing and Thinking in 2012, Zinsser's ideas have changed the way I approach my writing--or, to be more honest--try to approach. Freewriting, too, has become central to most of my teaching, and I hope to recharge this blog with posts about writing in the music history classroom, among other topics.

As anyone who works with freewriting knows, one of the core dictums is that the professor should always write with the class. I admit that I sometimes forget to do this, my mind otherwise preoccupied with the best way to manage the ensuing discussion. I always feel guilty when I forget to write with my students because then it feels like I've assigned a chore, rather than an activity. That's not to say I have to participate in every in-class activity, but I think cooperative engagement is generally the best pedagogical model for my classes.

I've re-conceptualized my seminars over the years, and I'm particularly excited about my upcoming Orpheus and Music seminar this term. It is an expansion of a seven-week course that I have taught both at the conservatory and as a community programs course.  While having fourteen weeks does allow us the chance to cover more repertoire, I've decided to keep the core repertoire from the shorter version of the course and to spend the extra time creating a hybrid teacherless writing class instead.

Peter Elbow's Writing without Teachers presents a model that, in its purest form, is not logistically possible within the confines of most curricula—an ideal teacherless writing group of eight people requires 2 to 2 ½ hours per week (Elbow, 84). Short class periods and departmental expectations hamper the instructor’s ability to devote hours to peer responding, particularly when integrated into a subject matter that is not strictly Composition/Rhetoric.  That said, it does provide a worthwhile philosophical approach that can easily be applied to courses in a variety of ways.  I've decided to integrate more peer-responding—as opposed to "peer-editing”--into my graduate seminars. Students will have several opportunities to freewrite and discuss in-class the different stages of their term papers. I've found, as I'm sure many professors do, that "choosing the topic" can be the most laborious aspect of a term paper. I do not give exacting prompts for graduate seminars because I want them to be intellectually curious enough to pick a topic that actually interests them. For many students, however, being confronted with an übertopic like "Orpheus and Music" and then being asked to come up with a research proposal in a few weeks time is a daunting task. This is absolutely understandable. So I've decided to bring in "teacherless" peer writing groups from the initial stages of the project--starting with determining a topic all the way through to the final draft stages.

This is all an extension of peer-review/peer-responding activities I have integrated into my courses throughout my teaching career. But this year brings a new twist: I'm going to write a seminar paper with my students. Essentially, I'm going to join their "teacherless" writing groups. I have a head start on my proposal, but I'll present it to them for their feedback, bring in my drafts, etc. The obvious advantage of this is that I will get some writing done. I hadn't planned on doing any professional work with "Orpheus and music," but if I'm going to spend hours upon hours prepping the material for the seminar, why not turn it into a paper? I realize this is not a revolutionary idea, but it is certainly the first time I've decided to work with my seminar in this way. My hope is that it will reinforce writing and research as process—a means, not just an end. The students will receive a grade for the proposal, annotated bibliography, and the final paper, but are also responsible for two separate "draft sessions" wherein they bring in a two-page portion (first session) and then a five-page portion (second session) to share in their peer-responding groups. I will be there too, sitting anxiously among them--sharing, reading, writing, learning, and teaching.

Stay tuned!

SOURCES:

Elbow, Peter. Writing Without Teachers. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Zinsser, William. Writing to Learn. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993.