R4: Focusing on Meta-cognition and Diversity

Paula Mathieu proposes that a writing course must be focused on some open ended question that focuses discussions and exploration so that the experience of “searching” for answers can be broad enough to include many interests while also narrow enough to explore a small facet of the issue. I also agree that even with such focusing, her woes about “the reality of how insufficient it all seems” in a single semester is my reality too, even though I have a year to teach a curriculum (125). Never enough time seems to exist to cover everything, so great care must be taken as to what will be presented. Currently my focus in my Brit Lit survey class is the focus on the power of the word. The mid-term and final exams must answer the same question (only cover more material in the final): Trace through the literature we have studied from Anglo-Saxon to modern the changing conscious of humanity about one certain issue. I “preach” that the “word” always comes before the physical manifestation. Literature, I firmly believe, functions as a harbinger of what is coming as society grapples with current concerns. So my focus will be on the power of language, of the “word.”

I also concur that a college level writing class must make students comfortable with scholarly research, including primary sources, and so I like her idea of teaching interviewing for the sake of research. Primary research and library skills are imperative, but without the ability to ask good questions, no amount of research will develop good writing.  So having a meta-cognitive understanding of research helps students to consider “research” beyond the internet.  Lots of mental doors could open up in such conversations as interviews or through “created experiences” or primary sources, leading to lots of questions to research.

Yet, Teresa Redd insists that students must be able to do more than scholarly writing to feel comfortable with their own writing skills. I also agree. All writing in one form or another is research. Some is “lived experience,” some is “created experience” as Douglas Hesse suggests, and some is searching “textual and empirical research” on the same topic (53). Either way, writing is sharing what one has experienced, discovered, or understood. So a writing class must also allow for writing done for different audiences and purposes with different mediums. Ultimately, the one goal for me, as it is for Chris Anson, is for students to be able to think with a meta-consciousness about how to explore and discover knowledge, how to consider that knowledge from an overview (twisting and turning the facts to see new perspectives and be conscious that one is doing just that), and how to communicate that knowledge in such a way that it matches the audience.

Developing these skills covers all five of Redd’s goals in her writing classes: develop authority within one’s own voice that can adapt to any situation; understand the relationships in thinking between writing, reading and research; understand how to research effectively; understand relationships between purpose, audience, and medium; and learn how to use all technologies from pen and paper to digital (147-151). Redd also stresses, as does Asao Inoue, the need to include students as the assessors to help develop that sense of meta-cognition abut their own writing, but she mixes student assessments, portfolios, and summative statements with formative assessments using rubrics and personal conferences. I love the idea of having students read their own papers before a mark is on the paper to “hear” if their errors are from proofreading (because they self-check as they read) or from a lack of knowledge (errors go right past them). That student reading offers two opportunities to assess: what writing knowledge (grammar, syntax, vocabulary, etc) are they not understanding or what value lies in proofreading. Both are excellent indicators of need for improvement.

Redd’s formal assessments, like Mathieu’s, focus on “grading” the portfolios and self-assessments, which avoids hindering the “labor” of creation as Inoue fears if formal grades are placed on the writings that move towards a finished product.

My writing class will be focused on an interdisciplinary research focus, will use portfolios and student assessments, will cross mediums for different audiences and environments, and will focus on Redd’s five goals, for they are mine also.

An aside I would like to share is the sublime feeling of being part of this collegiate research world on the pedagogy of writing when seeing Joe Harris’ text Rewriting quoted and forwarded as an argument to further improve writing classes. So cool.

Coxwell-Teague, Deborah and Ronald F. Lunsford. First Year Composition: From Theory to Practice. Parlor Press, 2014. Print.

Harris, Joseph. Rewriting: How To Do Things With Texts. U of Colorado, 2006. Print.

R2 Rewriting: A Move to Theorize

Considering the basic research assignment, the most important move a writer can make is that of theorizing. Emerging writers often focus on the task of gathering data, whether it serve the purpose of illustrating, authorizing, borrowing, or limiting. They find themselves lost in a sea of notes and sources, gripping at what they perceive as the strongest quotations to pull them through the assignment. What seems to fall out of place in this entire process is that of theorizing, or developing the controlling idea. At the very center of research writing is the thesis statement, and very few students I have encountered take the time to determine that critically important concept before consulting other texts for support. The issue arises because in order to take a strong stance on an issue, the writer must first be familiar with it. This, in and of itself, requires research, reading at the very least. A thorough understanding of the situation must first be established, and from that understanding comes the thesis, which may be to counter an established line of thinking or even to forward several and combine them into one. Regardless, the bulk of the research paper composition should stem from the thesis as the writer’s thought process buttressed by quotations and paraphrases to lend credibility. Only after establishing the thesis should the writer assesses texts to come to terms and forward or counter as he or she sees fit. The move to theorize must come first.

Missing this move results in a dead paper. Take, for example, a former student who asked me to review his research paper before submission. He had composed a fifteen-page essay elaborately describing a fascinating video game. Page after page, the essay outlined in detail the main character’s saga and exploits, motivation, background, shortcomings, love interests, etc. The essay was essentially a summary. Did he complete the research process? I can’t say that he did—he neglected to determine the purpose of his paper, which must happen before composing begins. He had nothing to prove, no thesis statement. He did make an attempt to assert that the theme song suited the game, but the analysis did not follow, nor did the research regarding the historical and cultural context, which would have granted some credence to his paper. For this essay, I would recreate the “Tracking Influences” assignment from Rewriting. “Tracking Analysis” would be my title, and I would have him highlight analysis, as the original assignment requires, and in the margin, have him write how the analysis proved his thesis. He would see clearly that the analysis was not present and that he could write nothing in the margin because the thesis did not exist. That would be a valuable, eye-opening experience, and it would lead to a true research paper. Above all, the need to theorize would become crystal clear.

Harris, Joseph. Rewriting. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2006. Print.

 

R2 Thinking about sources: when does the conversation begin?

Before coming to terms with what an author has stated or sharing a favorite idea or mining another person’s incomplete or skewed ideas or acknowledging influences upon one’s writing, one must first DIG. My students have difficulty in digging up the best facts, quotes, anecdotes, commentary, expert opinions, and more; some never get past Wikipedia, mainly because they do not ask questions of the material they have found to see what rabbit hole they will go down to find more material. Research makes the argument of a position possible. One cannot clarify terms, counter, forward, or understand others’ approaches if one has no “good” material to use. These various forms of critical thinking are necessary to focus one’s research to find new lines of discovery and add to a topic’s academic conversation. Without good research, nothing exists upon which one could forward, counter, or take an approach. Good research skills are at the heart of any academic conversation, and the research must be driven by a careful analysis of the material found, including the sources of one’s sources. One must question from where current source material devised their ideas—what were their sources? How did the current authors differ from their source materials?

In a culture where one can watch a major news network and question where are the facts in the new stories, one can find a student who will say (and I have heard this): “I don’t need any facts. I already know what I think.”

So the fear that academics might be “dogged by worries of bias” is true, but is not such bias the reason for research: to verify or refute or counter or relook at one’s approach to the ideas? Research is meant to be a discovery of what one thinks based upon what others think and an analysis of their thinking against one’s own.

So the first step is to get the facts, the information, the opinions, and more. Then check their sources. Then dig for more information as the researcher analyzes the information found. Using the skills of clarifying terms, forwarding, countering, and checking author’s approaches to their ideas are used WHILE researching. They direct where to look next for information. So the conversation with the research material begins while finding it, not necessarily while incorporating the information into one’s text. Such a process implies that the writing process does not begin until one has found and decided that the information is enough to form an informed opinion.

Yet I have had students tell me they were on page three of a six-page research paper, and when asked if they have finished all their research, they respond not yet. I do not get that concept. How can one begin writing an opinion before ALL the facts are in? Their assumption is that facts and ideas are sacrosanct, that no need exists to evaluate the ideas in one’s sources.

Many students cite sources that simply gloss a subject, and so they “come to terms” with superficial ideas and then forward a particularly favorite superficial idea and totally ignore other ideas, and so find the idea of understanding an author’s approach to material to be pointless because they see only their own ideas. To take an approach requires one to see the “whole picture” and the various ways of approaching the subject, but superficiality offers few approaches and even less development. Lacking good research and facts limits how well one can clearly evaluate one’s materials. Students must learn how to research deeply, how to follow “facts” and determine their ramifications upon the subject. Such thinking given to one’s sources will lead to better papers. Consider this student paragraph on the Beatles’ song “Revolution.”

One of the most influential [proof of its influence?] and moralistic songs of the Beatles was “Revolution,” released in 1968, shortly after the Beatles career had risen. [How much had it risen? Enough to start doing controversial songs? Explain] This song was the first “explicitly political song the band had ever released.”(Song Analysis- Revolution 1) [Why? What does this source say about the political message? What were the band’s politics?] John Lennon wrote this song during the Vietnam War, [what year of the Vietnam war? Be specific. What was happening that year?] the longest war in American history, presenting the problems of the people [what problems?] and protesting against the government actions of war. [What actions? How? Why?] Lennon wanted to craft this song to explain how even though involvement in the war may seem like a positive idea, it is really breaking the country apart [how?] and causing more destruction and damage towards people than might be seen. [Such as?]

This paragraph comes from an AP student. If her paper were to discuss these issues further in the paper with more facts and ideas, then a good analysis would begin to write itself, but she does not. She does not even ask the questions.

And so these skills of clarifying terms, sharing good resources, developing others’ ideas further, and “seeing” the approach or perspective taken by one’s sources are needed to write the paper but even more so to find the source materials themselves. That conversation needs to be happening from the beginning (before one even knows what one thinks or is willing to suspend one’s beliefs), then the conversation will carry over to the final draft, mimicking the process by which the researcher came to certain conclusions and shares what “to think” about a certain topic.