Aiming for Quality in Composition

Chapter 9 of Sennett’s book focuses on “Quality-Driven Work,” and it provides a variety of characterizations of a “good craftsman” in addition to exploring the borderline between obsession and vocation. Because of my ongoing focus on histories of Composition and its pedagogy, I found myself trying to make connections between his descriptions and the qualities of our field.

For example, to explain the concept of expertise he first notes the “modern usage of the term professional referred to people who saw themselves as something other than just employees,” which made me think about the period of professionalization of the field. James Berlin delineates this development in Rhetoric and Reality, where he informs us that in the late 30’s “[c]omposition teaching had been regarded as apprenticeship work at most larger universities since World War I, a job that beginning teachers undertook until they had spent enough time in the profession to qualify for better things” (105). Sennett also discussed the concept of apprenticeship in earlier chapters, and although I’m not surprised, I still find it noteworthy to point out how his description of expertise applies to the way that we can view ourselves as Teaching Assistants, or Writing Instructors, or New Scholars in the field, to Established Scholars in the field is similar to the sort of hierarchy that the apprentice/master distinction enforced in the medieval guilds.

Perhaps we should take heed of Sennett’s advice: “focus on whole human beings in time, it will encourage mentoring, and it will demand standards framed in language that any person in the organization can understand,” but I still wonder if that would be enough. This last suggestion is related to the sociable traits of an expert; however, there are also antisocial traits such as shaming others, or invidious comparison that Sennett points out at length. He admits that this inequality is built into all kinds of expertise. As a non-confrontational and mostly sociable person, I wonder if there are any ways that we can avoid these in our field. Would the simple consideration of this idea make me an anti-capitalist socialist? This is an ideology that I’ve been recognizing in some of the examples that Sennett includes in The Craftsman.

The list of “good qualities” of a craftsman should also be considered in relation to Composition. Sennett lists how the good craftsman: “understands the importance of the sketch—that is, not knowing quite what you are about when you begin;” “places positive value in contingency and constraint;” “needs to avoid pursuing a problem relentlessly to the point that it becomes perfectly self-contained” “avoids perfectionsism that can degrade into a self-conscious demonstration;” and “learns when it is time to stop”. Here I am thinking of teaching, from preparing a lesson plan to carrying out the lesson, but also the act of writing. Thus, Sennett provides us with a set of qualities that could be tailored for our composition classroom. But how much theoretical backdrop would we need to provide the students with, in order for them to grasp how these could affect their craft?

I would like to end with a sentence that drew me in as I was reading the section on Vocation: “Most people want to believe that their lives add up to more than a random series of disconnected events”. Once again, this seems to be related to economy, as it stems from Simon Head’s The New Ruthless Economy: Work and Power in the Digital Age. It reminds me of an honest discussion we had in class several weeks ago about how, ultimately, we all want to be in this field because it can provide us with the affordance to make a living. So I wonder, how can we begin to think of ourselves as something more than employees?

Just a Tune-Up: Beginning a Craft

Thinking about the ways in which Aristotle describes shame and shamelessness allows me to understand why I’ve been avoiding playing the bass guitar whenever my roommate is home. He explains that we only feel shame when the person that we are dealing with is someone that we care about, or respect, fearing that she could potentially provide a critique. In this instance, I respect my roommate as she is my colleague, and I value her opinion. Even if she is not an expert in music, she can still discern when I am not playing a note right—whether it is because the placement of my left finger is not placing enough pressure to produce the correct sound when I strike the string with my right hand, or simply because I play a progression of notes that don’t make sense, or don’t produce a melody at all. While she understands that I am just starting to play this instrument, I still feel ashamed about demonstrating this sort of inexperienced performance. Therefore, I have decided to wait for the moment when she is not home, those moments when I’m home, alone.

Sennett describes how the Renaissance ideal of originality was a “trait of single, lone individuals,” although he is talking about the goldsmiths and the relationships between master, journeyman and apprentice. Art is later referred to as an individual pursuit, such as the work of Cellini. I do not mean to indicate how I will be coming up with an original work of art, a genius musical piece. I am no virtuoso like Mozart, or at least I wasn’t practicing since I was a young child, like him. On the contrary, I need some guidance. As I started looking at the book that I was given, one that would teach me to play, I didn’t know how to start, or where to start. So I just started striking the first string and the second one, and I noticed that it was out of tune. Although I have some tacit knowledge of how to tune the guitar using the fifth fret of the first string to produce the sound of the open string that follows, I couldn’t remember what the first string sounds like, or how it’s supposed to sound, so I went online.

There is definitely a reliance on machines, a concept that Sennett explores in his book. He explores the evaluation that several figures from different historical periods have had in terms of how machines will replace or efface humans. While I first tried to download an app that imitated a tuner, it wasn’t giving me correct signals, and I felt like it was a waste of time. Going to youtube.com to search for videos on how to tune my bass guitar opened up the possibilities for me to learn my craft in a more guided procedure. The machine that I’m using, new media, is not simply supplanting the physical presence of a teacher, because there was a person who recorded, edited, and uploaded the video that I was then using to tune my bass guitar. As soon as I had the first note, though, I was able to tune the rest all by myself! But not really.