hi, all. so i've finally entered the fray of the blogging discussion - which has been going along swimmingly without me or my direction, i'll add - and i wonder about your experience with the blg (as a student in 61094, as a future teacher who might/might not adopt blogs).
one thing i notice every time i use blogs in my classes is how difficult it would be to dominate the conversation as a teacher. although i guess i could. i guess i could require students to post responses to my initial "new post" so i determine the topic/focus/direction, or i could just post more than everyone else. as it is, though, my comments are embedded in the strands as just another, equally weighted contribution [at least in its appearance in the stream of conversation - perhaps there are those of you in the class who will value them as the highly intelligent, pure gold thoughts they really are. :-) ]. we'll read about wait time later in the semester, but i'll foreshadow by saying that my waiting to respond to any blog postings was a kind of electronic-wait time. you've been having what appears to me to be a very productive, reflective, lively conversation.
what's it like for you as bloggers?
pam
Friday, September 14, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Durst Reading for Sept. 12th
In reading this week's chapters from Durst, I was overall pleased with the efforts of the writing program at the University of Cincinnati. I think it is beneficial for students to have a sequence of writing courses, as it is done at UC, which move them progressively towards being more critical and analytical in their writing. The first course, which is designed to "start where the students are" seems like a nice gateway course for students who are making the transition from procrastinating and writing papers in one draft two hours before it's due to drafting and thinking more about the writing process. I think it is crucial for students to learn this right off the bat in their college careers, because otherwise, they get into habits that last for the entire time they spend as undergraduates. I know several people who were English majors with me as an undergraduate who never thought about purpose, audience, or revision for a single paper they wrote (English majors!), and it makes me wonder why they are even studying the discipline. If that's how (un)serious English majors are taking their writing, then think about all of the people from other disciplines who are only taking composition as a general education requirement. Most of them don't even know what audience, purpose, voice, tone, or revision even are. I noticed in the reading that the beginning writing course at UC aims to get students thinking about these things by starting out with personal essays and moving towards more argumentative ones, which I think is a good idea, but I think students should be considering these aspects of the writing process (audience, purpose, revision, etc.) from the get-go. If it isn't made clear to them what they should be considering when writing a paper, they won't do it. We talked a lot about teaching function before form, and I don't necessarily think that students should be given definitions of these aspects before writing a paper, but they should know what they are through example. Revision should be emphasized the most, I think, and clearly defined, because most students think revision is merely correcting grammatical errors or changing the wording of their opening paragraph. I did think that the peer evaluation of the portfolios was great, because the students would be more likely to feel at ease about their writing, which is so important in an introductory course. While I agree with the overall goals of the first writing course in the program at UC, I still think there is room for improvement, as there always is in writing programs.
The second course, which students could only enter after passing through their teacher and peer evaluations, seemed (I think) to appropriately move from the more personal styles of writing in the introductory course to "reading and writing about larger culteral and political issues that help to shape contemporary thought" (16). I think this is a really hard transition to make, especially because most students will want to write very structured, thesis driven, five-paragraph essays that they learned how to write in high school. While that style of writing may be organized and generally a safe mode to write in for essays (as far as getting the desired "A"), I don't think it is challenging at all for student. I can remember mastering that type of writing in high school and the beginning of college, and thinking of it as a formula; I would do the necessary research, plug the information in to the formulaic structure of the essay, and spit out an A paper, and it never failed me. However, it wasn't until I was about halfway through college when I realized there are limitless approaches in writing essays, and that, though the way I was taught pretty much always guarunteed a good grade, I wasn't getting anything out of writing the essays. In fact, I have forgotten most of them. Once I started experimenting with forms, and making composition creative writing, I started to understand myself as a critical thinker on a whole new level. This shouldn't happen halfway through college, it should start happening in Writing 101 (or 11000, whatever it is here at KSU). I think that in my own classroom, I would want to encourage students to explore their writing in many different ways that will help them to be effective writers, not just to be able to write an A paper, but to be able to think and understand themselves and the world in a way that they haven't before.
The second course, which students could only enter after passing through their teacher and peer evaluations, seemed (I think) to appropriately move from the more personal styles of writing in the introductory course to "reading and writing about larger culteral and political issues that help to shape contemporary thought" (16). I think this is a really hard transition to make, especially because most students will want to write very structured, thesis driven, five-paragraph essays that they learned how to write in high school. While that style of writing may be organized and generally a safe mode to write in for essays (as far as getting the desired "A"), I don't think it is challenging at all for student. I can remember mastering that type of writing in high school and the beginning of college, and thinking of it as a formula; I would do the necessary research, plug the information in to the formulaic structure of the essay, and spit out an A paper, and it never failed me. However, it wasn't until I was about halfway through college when I realized there are limitless approaches in writing essays, and that, though the way I was taught pretty much always guarunteed a good grade, I wasn't getting anything out of writing the essays. In fact, I have forgotten most of them. Once I started experimenting with forms, and making composition creative writing, I started to understand myself as a critical thinker on a whole new level. This shouldn't happen halfway through college, it should start happening in Writing 101 (or 11000, whatever it is here at KSU). I think that in my own classroom, I would want to encourage students to explore their writing in many different ways that will help them to be effective writers, not just to be able to write an A paper, but to be able to think and understand themselves and the world in a way that they haven't before.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Readings for September 12
Durst:
Back to Durst, and back again to the concept of getting students interested in composition. We once again see the idea of allowing students to write about topics they’re interested in, but with the added benefit of forcing said students to become more analytical about these ideas throughout the semester. Here, we stumble upon a major problem: getting students to become analytical in the first place.
As I said in class (hopefully it’s not egotistical to cite yourself), most freshman comp students are coming from a culture where it’s not cool to smart, and it’s definitely not cool to over-think the “fun,” non-school parts of your life. The latter part of this attitude is reinforced by pre-college teachers, who have a limited view of “acceptable” topics for study and writing. So most of our students will have passions, but think that these passions – especially if they’re not “scholarly” – are unfit for discussions in the classroom, and especially unfit for use as the subjects of college writing. This is why more than half of the papers I reviewed as an undergrad tutor dealt with the “big three:” abortion, capital punishment, and euthanasia.
These are important topics, and do deserve to be discussed. But when these topics are chosen by freshman comp students, it’s mostly because these subjects are “easy.” It’s easy to pick a side, and it’s easy to find information to support your side of choice. Even if students are clearly for or against one side of these topics, it’s rare that they’re passionate about them.
I love the idea put into practice in chapter 5: students starting from a “casual” writing position, then slowly developing writing about their interests until their work has merit on a level above sheer entertainment. There is trouble with this, however; Durst points out that this technique can lead to students writing very one-sided and biased argumentative papers on topics of major interest to them. I think that this problem can be overcome, and that the finding of value and depth in something previously assumed to have none (as least in the eyes of the University) is well worth the experimentation.
Students get the rush of “cheating the system” by writing about something they genuinely like, and perhaps enjoying the writing process. Teachers, in turn, receive better writing, and give students the chance to realize how rewarding being analytical can be.
I think it’s a win/win situation.
Back to Durst, and back again to the concept of getting students interested in composition. We once again see the idea of allowing students to write about topics they’re interested in, but with the added benefit of forcing said students to become more analytical about these ideas throughout the semester. Here, we stumble upon a major problem: getting students to become analytical in the first place.
As I said in class (hopefully it’s not egotistical to cite yourself), most freshman comp students are coming from a culture where it’s not cool to smart, and it’s definitely not cool to over-think the “fun,” non-school parts of your life. The latter part of this attitude is reinforced by pre-college teachers, who have a limited view of “acceptable” topics for study and writing. So most of our students will have passions, but think that these passions – especially if they’re not “scholarly” – are unfit for discussions in the classroom, and especially unfit for use as the subjects of college writing. This is why more than half of the papers I reviewed as an undergrad tutor dealt with the “big three:” abortion, capital punishment, and euthanasia.
These are important topics, and do deserve to be discussed. But when these topics are chosen by freshman comp students, it’s mostly because these subjects are “easy.” It’s easy to pick a side, and it’s easy to find information to support your side of choice. Even if students are clearly for or against one side of these topics, it’s rare that they’re passionate about them.
I love the idea put into practice in chapter 5: students starting from a “casual” writing position, then slowly developing writing about their interests until their work has merit on a level above sheer entertainment. There is trouble with this, however; Durst points out that this technique can lead to students writing very one-sided and biased argumentative papers on topics of major interest to them. I think that this problem can be overcome, and that the finding of value and depth in something previously assumed to have none (as least in the eyes of the University) is well worth the experimentation.
Students get the rush of “cheating the system” by writing about something they genuinely like, and perhaps enjoying the writing process. Teachers, in turn, receive better writing, and give students the chance to realize how rewarding being analytical can be.
I think it’s a win/win situation.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Readings for September 10
Hartwell:
A good deal of Hartwell (at least, as I interpreted it) dealt with approaching your students as a human being, rather than a pillar of grammar and hatred. I imagine this will be easy for most of us, since we will be instructing people only 5-10 years younger than us. We don’t want students to be afraid to talk to us about their weaknesses, because it’s hard enough to get students to talk at all. Still, I think it’s important to maintain some degree of authority, especially when it comes to issues in class like behavior, students paying attention, etc.
I enjoyed how Hartwell broke apart the notions of proper English, showing how “lame” we teachers can be. Taking my first linguistics class was a real eye-opening experience for me, and since then I love to read articles like these. Some of the shattered notions that Hartwell brings up were steeped in the racism and classism of their day, and if you think about how few people were formally educated (and about their social status) when some of these mind-bending rules were created, the bias behind these grammatical dos and don’ts makes sense. We have to realize that English is a mix of French, English and terror, mutating over 1000 years. Which is why, Hartwell points out, that our spellings do not reflect phonetics, but instead, history. It’s a silly notion, but as speakers of the English language, we don’t think twice about these concepts; but English, as ridiculous and imperfect as it may be, is something that we have to teach.
Shuy:
I really don’t have much to add after reading it again. As we read more and more articles, I see that Shuy’s iceberg approach being used more and more. Just from comments in class, I realize some of you have prescriptivist leanings, and I like that these readings are challenging your beliefs. I hope we can challenge our students’ beliefs as well. Writing is a lot less intimidating when you point out how ridiculous some of the rules can be.
A good deal of Hartwell (at least, as I interpreted it) dealt with approaching your students as a human being, rather than a pillar of grammar and hatred. I imagine this will be easy for most of us, since we will be instructing people only 5-10 years younger than us. We don’t want students to be afraid to talk to us about their weaknesses, because it’s hard enough to get students to talk at all. Still, I think it’s important to maintain some degree of authority, especially when it comes to issues in class like behavior, students paying attention, etc.
I enjoyed how Hartwell broke apart the notions of proper English, showing how “lame” we teachers can be. Taking my first linguistics class was a real eye-opening experience for me, and since then I love to read articles like these. Some of the shattered notions that Hartwell brings up were steeped in the racism and classism of their day, and if you think about how few people were formally educated (and about their social status) when some of these mind-bending rules were created, the bias behind these grammatical dos and don’ts makes sense. We have to realize that English is a mix of French, English and terror, mutating over 1000 years. Which is why, Hartwell points out, that our spellings do not reflect phonetics, but instead, history. It’s a silly notion, but as speakers of the English language, we don’t think twice about these concepts; but English, as ridiculous and imperfect as it may be, is something that we have to teach.
Shuy:
I really don’t have much to add after reading it again. As we read more and more articles, I see that Shuy’s iceberg approach being used more and more. Just from comments in class, I realize some of you have prescriptivist leanings, and I like that these readings are challenging your beliefs. I hope we can challenge our students’ beliefs as well. Writing is a lot less intimidating when you point out how ridiculous some of the rules can be.
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