Shari - Lindemann Chapter 15

Shari - Lindemann Chapter 15

This chapter is a must read for any teacher of composition, but also for any teacher of any topic.  She clearly states how and what teachers need to do for their students so that they can succeed!  What really stuck for me was the "Directions" section.  In my past educational and professional life, assignments/work have been given much ambiguity.  I didn't want to go to the teacher/boss to ask for clarification as I didn't want to look like I didn't "get it."  But I was in business school, one of my professors told me that if I want an employee to do something or get somewhere, I need to get them a map. This is what Lindemann does.  She says, "Because effective writing classes involve students frequently in prewriting, writing, and rewriting, giving good directions is crucial."  And she continues on to say, "Good directions answer the following questions for students:  What do you want me t do?  How should I do it?  How much time do I have?  Why am I doing it?  How will I know if I've done it well?"  This is the tool, the map that students need to have. And they want this information.  Writing is subjective enough, at by having this information, it tells students to go have fun and be crazy and experiment with the language, but within the boundaries that we are all aware of. 

Shari - Lindemann Chapter 13

Shari - Lindemann Chapter 13 - Developing Writing Assignments

This is a good chapter. I really enjoyed what she said as well as how she said it.  I agree when she says, "Because students learn to write by writing, our responsibility is to control and vary the rhetorical demands of writing tasks."    She goes on to say that we must develop in our students a sensitivity to looking at the relationship between the writer with the reader, and with the subject.  This is not necessarily easy (though she doesn't say this).

She does say and I like how she shows the various typical assignments that students are given (this was so refreshing as usually works that I've read only tell what to and not to do in description without giving clear examples).  It shows that teachers do the same old same old be it effective or not.  I want my students to have fun outside of the same old same old.  And it's true when she says that doing this same boring stuff produces dull, general writing that isn't clear to the student nor to the reader. 

I'm going to steal her variable for creating a effective writing task!  It's good!  It's clear.  It has the power to provide students with boundaries and demands (so students know what's expected of them), but still allows for freedom within the confines.  I want to say that students crave this kind of boundary so that they know what is expected from them.

1.  "Students' interest in and understanding of subject
2.  Purpose or aim of composition
3.  Audience (which needn't always be the teacher)
4.  Role for the student to take with respect to the subject and audience
5.  Form of discourse (which needn't always be an essay)
6.  Criteria for success"

For Posterity: What do you think of my "Statement of Issue?"

Here is my first stab at a "Statement of Issue" for the prospectus. I welcome (and fear) any comments:

Tentative Title: The Treatment of Race in Dystopian Writing: Otherness in Lois Lowry’s The Giver

Statement of Issue: Lois Lowry’s The Giver, published in 1993, won the 1994 Newbery Medal and sold more than 3.5 million copies in its first year, but is among the American Library Association’s “Most Challenged” titles. Challengers (typically parents) allege that the novel’s treatment of sexuality and violence is too graphic for young readers, but this novel also tops the annual “Banned Book List” due to its dystopian themes of repression of identity, the subjugation of the individual to the community, and the suppression of race. This project will examine the various racial controversies present in The Giver, and will situate them within the context and history of banned and challenged books per the description available through the American Library Association and the Office of Intellectual Freedom (OIF) and the research conducted by recent criticism thereof. In addition, this information will work in conjunction with a study of the multiracial students in a standard High School Freshman English class who will assess the novel in terms of its overarching racial themes. They will be prompted to assess the novel for its broader context, motives and themes, and will also be asked targeted questions on its racial implications. They will be assessed in terms of their personal experiences and exposures to racial issues relevant to their own backgrounds, and their personal history with the issues brought up in the book. 

...

I'll let you know how that goes...

Ansom Graham: Becoming Todd

 Becoming Todd. 

Todd thought that giving little instruction on writing assignments would leave his freshman basic English class free to write without restrictions. That they would enjoy their new found freedom and run with it. Well it turns out 18 year olds that need remedial English (yes, I used remedial) are not that excited about free writing. 

Even if one section seems interested in race, politics or current events, this does not mean that all classes will be able to write or think critically about such issues in an open class forum. 18 year olds that have shown no interest or particular talent in writing  until this point, or students that dread writing, have been trained to write for (typically bad) teacher only. Even good high schools only allow so much group work and group think and the rest is about being told what to do, how to do it, and how to get the best grade. There is no critical thinking left in modern education. 

So what I wonder is how do I teach about interesting topics and still get them to think about them not just throw pop culture at it? If I take new ideas on gender and show them what the thoughts were 50 years ago versus a decade ago and newest thoughts on "performative gender" how do I get them from talking about drag queens and key west to Twelfth Night and Anzaldua?

I want to be a hip teacher, but I also want basic English students to learn how to do more than pass scantron assessments and write bad essays prone to error and regurgitation. But if they don't care and if teachers like Todd keep screwing around with their only college level English requirement, how will they ever learn to communicate effectively on paper. Read effectively in New media? How to succeed in anything that uses any form of communicating. 

Ch. 13- prompting prompts

“Because each composition represents a response to a specific ‘invitation’ to write, the problems in many papers may be the fault, not of the writer, but of the assignment” (213)

“Effective writing assignments encourage students to define progressively more complex rhetorical problems” (215)

Pretend you are an administrator overseeing the prompts chosen for the following examinations: Developmental English: Basic Writing, Exit Exam  & Graduate Writing Exam (GWE).  Read the prompts below and explain which one would fit best for each exam.  Back up your decision with supporting evidence and claims.

For homework, research each prompt and find as much information as possible as to 1) where it came from 2) context 3) what schools and grades or courses have used it for exams 4) year it was written.

After researching, look back at your decisions.  Do you feel the same? How have your thoughts or supporting evidence changed and/or stayed the same.  What new evidence can you add or remove? Any insights post research?

From infancy to adulthood, advertising is in the air Americans breathe, the information we absorb, almost without knowing it. It floods our mind with pictures of perfection and goals of happiness easy to attain. . . . We are feeding on foolery, of which a steady diet, for those who feed on little else, cannot help but leave a certain fuzziness of perception. ----- BarbaraTuchman

We expect our ties with our immediate family to extend throughout the lifetimes of the people involved. This expectation is by no means always fulfilled, as rising divorce rates and family break-ups indicate. Nevertheless, we still theoretically marry “until death do us part” and the social ideal is a lifetime relationship. Whether this is a proper or realistic expectation of a society in high transience is debatable. The fact remains, however, that family links are expected to be long term if not lifelong, and considerable guilt attaches to the person who breaks off such a relationship.

----Future Shock, Alvin Toffler

A Trainor/Brodkey inpsired thingy

Pretend you are a composition instructor for a Developmental writing class at a college.  Read/Watch the following passages/youtube clips and convey the first 3 things you immediately think of.  This may be a single word, a phrase, name of a song, person, or place, a picture, another clip etc.

For homework, take another look at each example and your initial thoughts, and then research each example and find out 1) author/creator 2) the professional status of the author/creator 3) context 4) year 5) content/subject matter.

Once you do this, come to class with discussion notes, a freewrite, list of topic points- something tangible or digital to share.  

EXAMPLE:

EXAMPLE:

What if, actually, complaining was a good thing to in certain cases, because it was a way to get something to change.  Like if you don’t complain about racism, how will we ever end racism? Right? Let’s just say, like, complaining is actually a good thing. How would you feel about that?

EXAMPLE:

Du Yusong having business like fruit stand. Like off the street kind. He is Du like Du Zong -- but not Tsung-ming Island people. The local people call putong, the river east side, he belong to that side local people. That man want to ask Du Zong father take him in like become own family. Du Zong father wasn't look down on him, but didn't take seriously, until that man big like become a mafia. Now important person, very hard to inviting him. Chinese way, came only to show respect, don't stay for dinner. Respect for making big celebration, he shows up. Mean gives lots of respect. Chinese custom. Chinese social life that way. If too important won't have to stay too long. He come to my wedding. I didn't see, I heard it. I gone to boy's side, they have YMCA dinner. Chinese age I was nineteen.

EXAMPLE:

I don’t have must to said this week a good frineds husband was kill satday at 3:15 the man who kill him is a good man he would give you the shirt off of his back it is really self-defense but anyway I see police academy three it was funny but not is good as the first two

EXAMPLE:

EXAMPLE:

I don’t think you can say, like, it would do any good, to just

whine all the time. Like, around here, I know, it would get you

nowhere. No one would listen and people would just be all, do the

work and it will pay off. Like you can complain about homework, but

the truth is, if you do it, by doing it, you are getting somewhere.

You’re getting a job or like college or whatever. And complaining, if

we just complained and never did all the work, then like I think it’s

like just giving up and saying ok, I don’t care what happens to me.

And then, it’s like, just hopeless, I guess. Just complain because

nothing does any good.

Rethinking how to develop writing assignments

I actually really enjoyed reading this chapter in the Lindeman.  Maybe because it was short...
I think that as graduate students, our writing assignments are extremely removed from the types of assignments we received as undergraduates, or even high school students. I'm so used to just having to write on a text, without having been given instructions, that I think I have forgotten how much I used to hate not having a set prompt on essays as an undergraduate.

While I do think it is important to give young writers direction when developing writing assignments, I find it equally important to give students the opportunity to think outside a set prompt as well. I wonder if it would be beneficial to go over certain aspects of writing before giving any assignments.  Shouldn't teachers explain concepts like writing for an audience and desired effects of a piece of writing before having students delve into an attempt.

I guess that within my own class, I would try to appease both sides of this.  Having a set prompt for specific texts and units is a must.  However, u would also like to give students the opportunity to come up with their own topic, if possible.  That teaches them more than how to correctly address a prompt, it teaches them to critically think about another viewpoint that hasn't been discussed.  I think this would be extremely beneficial for all students- especially those who don't necessarily speak out much in class.  This gives them a chance to get their ideas out without fear of being judged by peers.

Lindemann Chapter 15

This chapter in designing writing courses states that “All writing courses share a common goal: giving students enough guided practice in composing that they become more fluent, effective writers at the end of the course than they were at the beginning” (254). Lindemann discusses what-centered courses and how-centered courses. She takes issue when the writing course simply focuses on just one or the other. Obviously, each has worth, but I would say that when combined together they become more productive methods. For example, what-centered courses are useful as when the student gains practice in writing modes such as argumentation or exposition; likewise, process is useful in learning about the “how” of writing because it gives the student an invaluable tool in which to practice and frame her composition practice. But what is wrong with combining both? Doing so gives the student rhetorical flexibility as well as techniques and tools in shaping the language to achieve such rhetorical flexibility.

Lindemann, Chapter 13

I found this chapter on developing writing assignments very helpful. She begins by saying “Because each composition represents a response to a specific “invitation” to write, the problem in many papers may be the fault, not of the writer, but of the assignment” (213). This point cannot be emphasized enough. For me, when I was teaching high school it was a trial and error process. I wished I had Lindemann’s advice back then, as it would have saved me a great deal of grief. For me, I was always in a rush to get my students to start writing that I did not often give my assignments the meticulous thought and preparation that it required. When this happens, as Lindemann also remarks, it causes confusion and does not yield the type of products the teacher wants. The most important aspect of developing writing assignments is to “encourage students to define progressively more complex rhetorical problems” (215). Hence, students should not be given the same types of assignments over and over again. I agree that when we don’t give students a rhetorical problem to tackle, that we are indeed wasting students’ time as they grapple with instead a “paper-writing problem” (215). Even though a knowledge of process pedagogy is important, I feel that this chapter is also of paramount importance because without effective writing assignments, students would not get practice in rhetoric and composition.

Trainor and Writing about Literature

“Throughout the academic year I spent at the high school, I observed two English classes taught by a woman I will call Elizabeth, a progressive, passionate teacher committed to her students and to social justice ideals”(83)  

High School is its own space with its own politics: academic and social. It’s the last frontier before students enter college, the work place- basically the real world. Trainor’s article makes this clear through the issue of race and insularity of the students within their town. Many of them, however, make it clear that they are not narrow minded but that racism does exist and they’ve had some connection to it; Ok, that’s a start. Literature, for this progressive teacher, is a way to expand the student’s exposure- or at least realize the lack there of-to other cultures; but the experiment, as I read it, falls short.

Progressive. Passionate. Committed. All great qualities to embody. But the whole “positive” movement/attitude/ideology seems to only keep the bias going. If everything is all sunshine and rainbows then it’s not a real representation of the real world; but what does this progressive teacher do, what does this article for that matter accomplish: well, it’s a good example of in-the-field observation, understanding that the students’ bias is complex enough to be studied through composition and literature, and that High School teaches more than the three Rs(four Rs), one for racism.  

Toni Morison- An example of exposing students to great writers writing in untraditional dialects, excluded experiences, and empathy for other human beings. When I think about reading material for students, I want things short enough so it can be read multiple times if needed, it’s not overwhelming , and usually a piece of literature: short stories or poems. But the selection process, and this is more towards my thesis, has to be more tactical. So maybe the problem lies in the selection; a practical alternative:

If I were to select a companion text to Morrison, but still talk about the themes that the progressive teacher wanted to cover, I would suggest James Baldwin’s Giovanni’ s Room: its narrated by a white man, written by a Black author, and deals with the discrimination of its white, gay, American protagonist experiencing expatriation.

What I want to do is find a common ground with the way students write about literature, possibly by giving them a chance to select their own material, not just their own writing prompts, and see if they can write/engage/appreciate/ relate/and expand  on the words of writers like Morrison.