 I think with what they're sort of naturally exposed to as opposed to what they're not Because we've been talking about things that I think social argumentation is there. It's a familial thing It's a thing that you do. You know when my younger son was very young He wanted me to tell him stories about my life before bed and a lot of times I was really busy and it was late and I wanted to get him to bed quickly and And so I would say okay. I'm gonna tell you a story about when I was a little boy One day I got up and I had breakfast, you know Cheerios. I climbed my favorite tree. I went in I had lunch You know grilled cheese sandwich I went out again. I played in the yard. I went in I had dinner spaghetti and meatballs I read a book and I went to bed the end and He and he got so frustrated and I said I told you a story about when I was a little boy and he said it's not a story It's not a story and so then I thought okay I'm gonna play with this a little bit what makes a good story of course He didn't use the kinds of terms that we would be note He knew what a good good stories have certain kinds of structures and certain complications and they have resolution So at the age of about four or five He knew what a good story was and so I think a lot of student all students have lots and lots of discourse knowledge But what what is the discourse? What have they not been exposed to what kinds of tech? And this is an issue when you look at elementary education. There's such a focus on imaginative Written discourse. There's such a focus on storytelling and much less on other kinds of genre I mean kids don't read they don't get exposed to scientific articles and op-eds and so on So they wouldn't if you gave them a bad one, they wouldn't say that's not a good op-ed Right, I mean they don't have that so so one thing I think we have to think about is what Students are exposed to as a matter of course Which I think will be amenable to some kind of transfer if we make it explicit enough And what are what are there they never exposed to that we need to expose them to so that's that's one issue The other thing I wanted to say about I thought Nancy said something interesting about You know about this notion of engagement on a response level and I think we ought to think about that on a curricular level Because we were so used particularly in writing programs We're so used to giving students assignments that are completely disconnected from each other every two weeks We expect them to do brilliant things with no knowledge at all You know it's supposed to write great make great arguments and make cases with no chance to really immerse themselves in The stuff that they're writing about and it brings to mind some work that David Jolliff did many years ago on the sort of inquiry Guided learning Where students would would choose something it spent a lot of time choosing something that was that they really were passionate about learning And then they would spend the entire course just immersed in that question And they'd spin off different kinds of texts and different genres from that And he said that by the end of the course they were writing with so much more authority And confidence and depth about these topics because they weren't facing a new topic every two weeks That's another thing. I think we need to think about is to what extent we're really Giving students unreasonable kinds of tasks, you know that that don't allow them to To know what we we write about things we know about and we often don't give them the chance to really know something to write about it Effectively so those are two thoughts I Can add something to that I think it seems to me that in addition to Giving students unfamiliar kinds of text. There are certain very familiar texts that They encounter all the time and never really read And a lot of these are the texts. I call sacred texts political sacred texts Religious sacred texts You know if you if you just get your sacred texts In a certain place if you get your religious sacred text always being interpreted for you by By some minister or a priest you probably have never really read that sacred text and I think that Using the kinds of skills that we develop with the literary text and turning them on the Sacred text can be a very exciting thing take a simple example God appears and says I am the Lord by God Now shall have no other gods before me Question does God think there are no other gods or does God think there are other gods And he just wants to be the first in line You know I Think that reading these things really reading these things and reading what is not said as well as What is said, you know when when you're told that you shall not covet Thy neighbor's wife or his ox or his ass or his maid servant or his man said There's nothing in there about not coveting husbands, you know why not? Because husbands are the coveters they're the owners, you know And if you if you if you read those texts and don't read what isn't being said you'll never understand what sort of Creature this God is of course he's not a creature. He's a creator, right? But you know what I mean what sort of creator this God is then put it that way I think that that putting these sacred text putting the second amendment putting the 14th amendment putting these things out there and saying Let's really read them. Let's read them with all of the intensity and skill that we develop From looking at other kinds of Other kinds of text. I think that can be very exciting if we have the courage to do that you know the sacred texts have have a certain problem and My own theory of reading is a three-part Theory there's first of all and I like to explain this to students and say for the text We're going to look at we're going to do it in three stages First stage reacting just immediate response. Do you like it? Do you not like it the the you agree with it not agree with it? second stage Where is it coming from? What what did it mean to the person or persons who created it? Can we go back to that stage back to us as Auden says them there then Go back to them there then and and ask what it what it meant to them And then the third stage criticism say okay if it meant that to them there then What does it mean to us here now and do we want to accept that if if we think that? That God seems to be a man speaking to other men and that women are dealt with as property there Do we do we want to do we really want that religion? You know, we mean that that's the critical stage and I think that There's a lot that we can do to energize our classrooms by getting the sacred text in there I mean, I also think we need to do profane text and in another way But but the sacred text belong in in our curriculum in in the curriculum that studies reading and writing That's a way of saying things are more complicated than they seem Which I think I think ought to be a template for every politician before they run for office Yeah on that by the way Just Nancy I understand that it's it certainly can be irritating when students Take a formula like that Complication formula and sort of beat it to death, but I have to say that we're teaching a lot of students now We wish they would do that, you know we push So it's not the worst thing when students kind of turn our stuff into cliches a lot of them Don't know yet how to do that It's really brings me to I was delighted that when Jack Barrett and Said and I wrote down what he said that the amount of mystification in academia is appalling I don't think that can be said too strongly. I mean Yeah, I don't get the feeling that we act as if We worry, you know, we care about that that much that it has much urgency To us, I think we should But I think with it when we do Worry about the mystification in academia and how How unsuccessful we often aren't getting getting through to To our students we act as if it's a matter of individual teaching or of individual course strategy or even and Bob I've earned the right to Make this mild suggestion because I've taught your We've taught your books for many years, you know, the best things around for teaching current advanced literary culture Making it clear to students who don't understand it, which is most but you know change We could change the the subject matter and and and stress textuality much more than we now do Deep privilege literature privilege textuality a lot of them still would be very confused In fact some might be more so because it's inherently Hard hard to think that way and I think that too and this goes back to our Approach, you know, it seems to me we have to get beyond the level of individual teaching individual courses individual subject matter To make a dent in this problem We have to start thinking collectively on how the students see us as a collective body faculties or eggheads educated types The University still acts as if it's up to to them to figure us out and if they don't it's their fault You know, it's not our fault We we assessment. I think somebody brought it up is Is Has the potential to change that situation because we have to start asking well, how much of How much of what we're putting out there is Actually being learned and then we have to think of we whose assessment is not just about what I teach or what you teach Or what I do in my course, you know, it's like to say it's about what kind of sense they make of us and and that's that's why Kathy and I I think try to Focus on The totality that's coming across to them and why the the question of mixed messages and commonality. It seems to me becomes important You have to get to a microphone I Know what but but the video I want I Want to make a comment on behalf of your son's need for a story I Think it's very important for children to Internalize the stories because that's how they develop their stories and I remember stories that I read in grade school that I have never forgotten About personal bravery or compassion and I think that's the way children build So I say hats off to your boy Any other comments If not, I'm going to declare the session adjourned and people can try to avoid the snow storm You