R4: A Call for Vocabulary

A common thread I noticed while reading the final course descriptions assigned is a focus on key terms or rhetorical vocabulary.  Perhaps I noticed this thread because of a heightened awareness (upon review of the course drafts submitted by my classmates and the comments provided by Dr. Harris on my course submission), but regardless, this focus on key terms will provide additional guidance as I continue to revise my course over the next several weeks.

Tinberg introduces critical vocabulary as he lays out the goals for acquisition of 4 kinds of knowledge – rhetorical, genre, process, and metacognition.  A full understanding of this vocabulary guides students’ understanding of their own writing, their classmates’ writing, and any readings they may encounter throughout the course.  He demands that students use this language to “discern the elements of effective writing in their own work as well as in that of others.”  Tinberg goes on to discuss the importance of “developing a critical and precise vocabulary about writing” as he describes the critical process of “post-writes” that play an important role throughout his course.

Wardle and Downs go on to flesh out the meaning of writing as a rhetorical activity that is “situated,” “motivated,” “contingent,” “material” or “embodied,” and “epistemic.”  More key terms associated with writing.  Their writing about writing approach relies on students’ understanding of the vocabulary that allows a deep understanding of what writing is and how we can learn from our own writing as well as the writing of others.

Yancey considers writing through a Bloom’s taxonomy lens – a process where students learn facts, engage with concepts, practice, and reflect (more key terms associated with writing).  She then compares the power of key terms associated with other practices (like soccer) to writing – our students have the learn the nuanced vocabulary associated with writing so that they can practice and improve (just as soccer players must practice and improve their dribbling, passing, and crossing – not just “kicking”).  She specifically references “rhetorical situation,” “composing process,” “discourse community,” genre,” “literacy,” and “reflection.”  Yancey’s syllabus ends with a list of key terms, emphasizing the importance of vocabulary to her course.

While the incorporation of vocabulary may seem like an obvious focus in an English class, I was reminded as I read these final chapters that our students need guidance on what these key terms mean, why they are important, and how to apply their understanding of the terms to their own writing and the writing of others.  I am hopeful that I can revise my plans to be sure that a deliberate focus on vocabulary is clear and deliberate and that my students leave my class with a confident ability to use these important terms beyond the walls of their first year comp course.

R3: Considering Context

As we quickly approach the due date for the initial work on our plan for next year, I find myself searching for common threads throughout all of the approaches we’ve been assigned so far.  One in particular has jumped out at me – the need to consider context.

As we tackled the first 4 readings, I found myself feeling (in certain cases) as though some of the material, though intriguing, may not be applicable in my classroom.  But as Paula Mathieu explicitly points out in her piece, understanding our “place” is critical in determining our approach to a first-year comp course.  As is evident in the numerous academic readings about FYC (Shipka lists 12+ in her suggested reading list, none of which include any of the professors asked to contribute to the text we are studying), approaches to this course inevitably change with time, audience, place, instructor, among other factors like required grading policy guidelines, number of students enrolled in the course, etc.

Crafting our courses will require us to consider all of the factors I mention and the contributing authors allude to, as well as, of course, others, as we adjust to schedule changes (snow days!, last minute assemblies, testing windows, prom, field trips, . . .) and other demands we encounter through implementation.  I do not suggest we not plan – in fact, the plan is CRITICAL – but rather that we heed the advice provided to us to consider our context.

In reflecting for this post, I flipped back through my annotations to look for obvious connections or ideas throughout the texts.  I discovered that many of the ideas I marked were ideas that I thought sounded fun and engaging to teach (like Mathieu’s researched interview – I found this assignment terribly interesting) – I was thinking of myself in the context of the course – what might I enjoy teaching.  I also noticed many question marks with notes like “how might this work at Conrad?” or “would this work in the HS setting?” (like Reid’s publicly posted forums and grading policy). With these notes, I was considering the students sitting in my classroom – my audience.  I even discovered a note in which I mentioned a particular student and how the strategy might be particularly successful for him (I taught him as a 10th grader and know he is registered for this course next year).  Designing a course with particular students in mind has obvious implications (not all positive, of course), but the context in which I will be teaching this course next year (which includes teaching 15 out of the 20 students whom I taught as 10th graders) facilitates some ability for me to consider the context of the particular learners in my classroom to customize the activities to meet some of their specific needs.  This context will be available to me as long as I continue to teach 10th graders and E110 students at Conrad.

To be clear, my plan is not to design this course year after year with my particular students in mind, but I mention my unique context as a consideration, one that is impossible for me to remove from my thinking as I begin to piece together the approach and syllabus for E110 at Conrad.  We must be sure that the context of our individual styles, students, school requirements, and beyond work their way into our course plans, in the same way that each contributor designed courses that met the context of their unique situations.

R2: Literacy Autobiographies and Revision

Upon completion of the assigned reading, my head feels like it is spinning with ideas, strategies, and approaches to developing next year’s E110 course at Conrad Schools of Science.  To be clear, the spinning is positive, but mildly overwhelming.

A shared technique (more specifically, a shared assignment) that appeared in both Anson’s and Canagarajah’s proposed First-Year Comp courses is the literacy autobiography writing assignment.  I was particularly intrigued by this technique since, to kick off the school year for the past 2 years, I have asked my students to read “How I Learned to Read and Write” by Helen Keller, and (after discussing the reading) write their own story to illustrate how they learned to read and write.  Many of the stories I’ve read sounded similar to those described in Anson’s chapter – stories that “tell about their literacy development in highly generalized ways” (FYC, 15); however, I have not in past years engaged the students in taking their essays to the next level after responding to feedback from peers and making recommended changes – revising their work.  Further, Canagarajah takes this idea of the literacy autobiography to yet another level, as she challenges her students to find their own voices through a process that leads students from autobiography to autoethnography.  While Canagarajah’s approach lends itself (through her own admission) to ESL students which is not the primary make-up of the students I will be teaching (at least next year), I found value in her assignment as students transform their writing (through revision) from narrative to argumentation (or some combination thereof).  I appreciated the transformation of the text – perhaps a way to help students see what true revision can look like early in the course.

Speaking of revision, I noticed that each proposed syllabus focused heavily on the writing process, a technique critical in the success of the literacy autobiographies mentioned above and of course, critical throughout the course.  A trend that included existence of consistent writing/feedback groups throughout the entire semester was pervasive, and one that I see as critical in any first-year comp course.  Whether in Inoue’s “non-graded” class focused on labor or Hesse’s course focused on different types of writing, all of the course descriptions lead students from seeing their writing as a PRODUCT to seeing their writing as a PROCESS.  My experience teaching high school students has proven that this is not an easy shift to make – I’m hopeful as we continue to explore the theories and proposed courses throughout FYC that this shift will seem more achievable.

R1: So What?

When I began reading Rewriting: How to Do Things With Texts, I was quickly reminded of a book from which I have borrowed many ideas for teaching writing.  In They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing, Graff, Birkenstein, and Durst offer suggestions and even templates that encourage and assist writers to “enter the conversation” of academic writing.  As in Rewriting, They Say/I Say explores several ways that writers work with texts to advance their own ideas.

One “move” that Graff, Birkenstein, and Durst suggest, which I find myself reminding students over and over again in my own classroom, is one which asks the writer to explain WHY what they are saying matters.  The authors assert that “rather than assume that audiences will know why their claims matter, all writers need to answer the “so what?” and “who cares?” questions up front. ”  This assertion not only gives a writer the directive to respond to these questions, but also implicitly requires the writer to consider her audience.  Considering audience (whether academic specialization, political slant, gender, or something else) can help the writer determine WHY what he or she has to say will matter to whomever she is writing for, completing the rhetorical triangle connecting writer, subject, and audience.

I have suggested that students in my classroom address this move at the end of their essays (rather than “up front” as suggested in They Say/I Say).  In the formulaic final “element of an argument” (after the hook, claim, support, and concessions/refutation), the call to action seems a natural location for writers to directly address their audience by calling on readers to DO SOMETHING as a result of reading the text, providing them with a reason why the text matters – answer the “so what?”  However, this move is offered in They Say/I Say as a way to hook the audience from the outset, giving them a purpose for reading the text.  I propose that either approach can be effective, as long as a writer remembers to address her audience by telling them why what she has to say matters and why they, too, should care.

In an editorial assignment completed by 10th graders at Conrad Schools of Science, one student (Madison) hooks her audience with the following opening: “Thin hair, baggy eyes, yellow teeth and wrinkles before you’re old: all effects of smoking. Most people agree that the smoke is not worth it; in fact, approximately 3 out of 4 adults in the United States reported that they do not smoke,” and concludes with “If people want to save the next generation, they need to first acknowledge the problem.”  She tells us who cares – “3 out of 4 adults,” people who do not want to look old before their time, and people who “want to save the next generation.”  She addresses this additional move which calls for academic writers to say why it matters.