Weekly Response: Selfe's "The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing"

Selfe is arguing that FYW and Composition courses need to include other modes of communication besides writing. I am most certain that they contain discussion and often presentations. Many colleges now use CMS that allow for digital reading and writing, videos, tweets, linked readings, and online references. I understand her argument: that students now create aural compositions. If they are doing this on their own, do they need more in-class instruction? Why teach them what they already know? It seems that their writing skills are significantly weaker than their media skills. I have noticed that while students write electronically, compose in mixed media, and read tweets and texts, they lack the ability to read deeply and write clearly. Therefore, that is where teachers should be focusing their efforts in the classroom. Can we use pieces of other modalities? Sure, but they should not be the focus.

Weekly Response: Yancey's "Made Not Only in Words"

Yancey poses thought-provoking questions about writing at the beginning of this paper.

In the first "quartet" of her address to the CCCC, she talks about all the writing that is going on outside of school, and how the public is awakening to writing as the public awoke to reading during the industrial revolution. She references shifts in monetary allotment from schools to students, and how this changes education. She then discusses changes in writing, and that literacy is now screen based and media oriented.

Weekly Response: Wiley's "The Popularity of Formulaic Writing"

Wiley has some good points. I understand that she is not happy with the formulaic nature of Schaffer's pedagogy in her program that teaches the multi paragraph essay. She suggests, per Collins, that teachers should use the formula as a strategy, not a formula per se. I would hope that teachers could use the formula, but add more to it, so it isn't exactly a recipe.

"To develop as writers, students must develop a repertoire of strategies for dealing effectively with various writing tasks presented to them in different situations. They must also learn to make choices about genre, content, structure, organization, and style; and they must learn to hone their judgments about the effects of the choices they make as writers." Yes, but using Schaffer's program doesn't precluded teaching situational writing also.

Weekly Response: Fister's "Why the Research Paper is Not Working"

I agree and disagree with Fister. She is right that the research paper doesn't work. In HUM 101 we just finished doing a research paper, and the results are somewhat disappointing and just as Fister says: no one can cite sources correctly, and students skim the surface of the sources they read anyway, picking quotes out after the paper is written. Further, the students seem to be able to do "everyday research" much better than academic research. She suggests that we should scrap the formal research paper in freshman year because the students don't like it and aren't successful with it. Hmmm, maybe we should also scrap first year sports, as many students are uncoordinated and not star athletes when they first try a new athletic endeavor. Ridiculous, of course, but the comparison makes sense. 

Weekly Response: Yancey's "Looking Back as We Look Forward: Historicizing Writing Assessment"

Yancey reviews the history of writing assessment and describes three waves: testing, holistic scoring, and portfolio and program assessment. She asks what we can learn from writing assessment. That is a question we are addressing in our FYW program now in the Writing Committee meetings. Further, Yancey discusses the different realms of educators and testing specialists.

In the first wave, Deiderich seems overly confident in the assessment professionals' abilities to quantify good writing. Educators, on the other hand, were more concerned with validity than reliability and efficiency. However, it took 20 years for their concerns to create change in the system.

Weekly Response: Straub's "The Concept of Control in Teacher Response"

This article concentrated on explaining the difference in teacher comments on writing assignments, and how facilitative comments allow students to maintain more control over their writing than directive comments.  (The examples were very useful.) I felt that the author flip-flopped a couple times, seeming to feel that facilitative comments are superior to directive comments, and then explaining that teachers will have different styles and ways of using directive comments that are appropriate for certain teachers and in certain settings. Straub clearly prefers facilitative comments, but didn't want to be directive in telling teachers how to comment.

It was in the end notes that Straub best explained the difference between facilitative and directive responses.

In directive commentary, the teacher says or implies, 'Don't do it your way; do it this way.' In facilitative commentary, the teacher says or implies, 'Here's what your choices have caused me to think you're saying-if my response differs from your intent, how can you help me to see what you mean?'

I tend to like a mix of both, when I use comments at all. (I prefer conferences or rubrics.) My students would not appreciate completely facilitative responses. They want to be told what to do to "fix" the paper; they want clear instructions. However, giving them only directives does not teach them to think and become better writers.

Weekly Response: Yancey's "Writing Assessment in the Early 21st Century"

Yancey gives background about how writing was assessed leading up to the last decade or so.  The questions asked are thought-provoking--who should be in charge of assessment, administrators or teachers? What are we assessing? How? I think sometimes the "testing" folks and the teachers don't really stop to think about these things. It's like a machine that just rolls, and no one stops to ask questions about why is it rolling and in what direction and who's driving??

One thing I love about this class is that it's so relevant to everything I'm doing right now. The Writing Committee at NJIT was just tasked with reading the most recent WPA Outcomes Statement. We were asked to write a response to the statement taking into consideration our department, our current syllabi and pedagogy, and our student population. So cool to have just done that and now read about how and why it came about, and what has happened since. I am certain that no one else on the committee except the director has read any of the scholarly articles regarding assessment that we have in this class. There is no one in the department with a background in Composition. Interesting. Yancey says some schools use them as-is, while others adapt them. We have never used the outcomes (or even acknowledged their existence as far as I know), but we're hoping to use them as a guide for a new NJIT Outcomes Statement as we rewrite the curriculum for our FYW program. Am I a nerd, or is that kind of exciting?

Weekly Response: Bean's "Using Rubrics to Develop and Apply Grading Criteria"

This was a great reading. I'll respond to it with my own experiences with holistic grading, norming sessions, and rubrics.

When Bean talked about the controversy surrounding what professors actually want, it reminded me of some of the other articles we read about evaluating student writing. First, we need to decide what wer're looking for: voice, organization, content, grammar and spelling...? 

Weekly Response: Matsuda's "Teaching Composition in the Multi Lingual World"

Matsuda discusses the role of second language writing in composition studies. He realizes that teaching English in college continues to evolve as student populations change, and he talks about how writing for ESL is separated from writing for native speakers, which may not be the correct choice. Then he says the "myth of linguistic homogeneity" (37) has not been properly addressed among those who teach writing to first language speakers.

Second language writing (L2 Writing) "refers to writing in any language that the writer did not grow up with, including the third, fourth, fifth language, and so on." (38). There are other acronyms too, such as ESL, ESOL, and ELL. All seem to carry a stigma. Generation 1.5 is a new label for ELL who are not foreign.

Weekly Response: Harris & Silva's "Tutoring ESL Students: Issues and Options"

The article "Tutoring ESL Students" came at a great time. The Writing Center staff and ESL Department at NJIT just held a seminar on the same topic! It was interesting to see which topics seemed to be universal concerns. Deciding between global and local problems in students' writing was discussed. Dealing with content before grammar was also covered. There was a lengthy discussion in the seminar and the article about how ESL students often want an editor and/or want to focus on "correctness" and rules. It makes sense. That's what I want when I write in a foreign language. I am usually confident in my ideas, but I'm not sure if I expressed them correctly and clearly for a native language reader to understand my meaning as I intend it to be understood.

Final Project: Theme/Title

Browsing over what Colin and Laura wrote, I agree that Writing Matters is a great title. It is broad enough to encompass each of our individual projects, but focused enough to explain what we are doing. I'll test it against the other choices.

Writing Matters vs. Finding Your Voice: The two titles are similar in that they both imply that we are all looking for what matters individually to each of us and how to use writing to express it. However, using the word "voice" seems to imply "voice" or "style" in writing, which isn't really what we were shooting for. It also seems to imply we were silent until we "found" something, which I don't really agree with.
My verdict: Writing Matters wins.

Writing Matters vs. That Writing Moment: Writing Matters can refer to why writing is important, or it can refer to different matters, subjects, situations, in which writing is used and valued. The double entendre is cool. That Writing Moment is too narrow (just one moment!), and doesn't include the various angles and situations that Writing Matters allows.
My verdict: Writing Matters wins.

Writing Matters vs. Why I Write: I'm not sure any of us actually included Why I Write as an option. I think it made the list because Dr. Zamora asked the group a question about our theme and we were not clear enough with our answer. (A misunderstanding?) I think our vignettes are pretty diverse and don't necessarily respond to the question "why I write." If we are not all focusing on the answer to that question in our vignettes, then we shouldn't use Why I Write as our title/theme. If we are, then Why I Write should stay on the table. Personally, I am not trying to answer that question, but I could change direction if that's what the group decides.
My verdict: I prefer Writing Matters but would defer to the group's decision if Why I Write explains everyone else's intentions.

Weekly Response: Murray's "Teach the Motivating Force of Revision"

Donald Murray is at it again. He is asking professors to teach students the joy and adventure of revising. He wants students to find new ideas and interests through their writing. They should move through meaning to discover what they truly want to say.

I get the point of his article, but it seems like it would work so much better in a creative writing setting than in my FYW classes. Also, freshmen definitely think that any required revision means they did a poor job on the first draft. It's a punishment, or at best a request for editing "mistakes."

Reflection: Peer Response Assignment, Jaxon Style

We tried the peer review in class today based on Jaxon's article. Students brought in two copies of their research proposals. I had students write memos to peers on the back of their papers. That took about 25 minutes in the early class and only about 15 in the later class. Then, I made sure they exchanged papers with someone they don't sit near, because we have done some peer editing before, and I didn't want them going to the same folks each time.

I explained that the proposal isn't just a preliminary document to the research paper, but an important stand-alone genre. Then I offered lots of points for the peer feedback. I didn't, as Jaxon suggested, let them bring the assignment home. There was plenty of time in class.

Weekly Response: Sommers's "Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers"

Nancy Sommers, in her essay "Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers" distinguishes between the linear nature of speech and the recursive nature of writing. She is uncomfortable with writing and revision strategies that are linear and stage-based, putting revision somewhere at the end of the process.  Revision must permeate the entire process.

She explains that speech cannot be revised, only added to as an afterthought.

The spoken word cannot be revised. The possibility of revision distinguishes the written text from speech.  In fact, according to Bathes, this is the essential difference between writing and speaking. (379)

Sommers conducted a case study to find out exactly what the students do to revise papers. It seems they focus on revision as wordsmithing at the end of a writing process, once they feel their writing is "finished." Concerns were finding the "right" word, avoiding repetition, and checking for mechanical errors. There was no reworking of theme, concepts, voice, or order. The students don't know how to revise; therefore, they try to follow the "rules" they've been taught.

The experienced adult writers, on the other hand, re-envisioned their argument and their form or framework, and considering their readers. Through this process they create meaning. Revision occurs throughout their writing and is not done only at the end. Their process is not linear but a series of different cycles, and they are not primarily wordsmithing. They are adding, deleting, and reordering sentences.

Sommers hopes that students will learn to revise by understanding the opportunities and possibilities that writing offers as opposed to speech: the advantage of revision.

Final Project: Digital Tools Idea

 
Click the play button at the bottom left. Please use speakers or headphones while viewing. (Er, I hope I embedded this correctly. Also, if this were the real deal, I would've followed a written script instead of winging it.)

Weekly Response: Jaxon's "One Approach to Guiding Peer Response"

This article reads more like a TIW than an essay. I am going to try out her ideas on Tuesday! The students are just starting their research papers in class, and next week we will use Jaxon's style of peer editing. Her directions are clear, and her examples are instructive. At first I thought she was unclear, because she offers peer response guidelines for a proposal, but then discusses only the peer review given for a first draft of a research paper. I read this again, and I see that she is suggesting that the students look at the assignment and then compose questions that will be answered in the peer review document. She gave the assignment and questions composed for the proposal document. Later, when she gives an example of peer feedback for the actual research paper, we don't get to see the assignment or the questions composed.

Weekly Response: Beach and Friedrich's "Response to Writing"

Dear Lord,
Please spare me
from any more articles
by Beach & Friedrich.
Amen.

Weekly Response: John Bean's "Writing Comments on Students' Papers"

Great and useful essay. John Bean describes some strategies that I already use in my class, and he offers some useful advice that I will certainly try at my next opportunity.

In the beginning of the essay he talks about how easily students get discouraged. For me, this is something I strive to actively remember when I grade and conference with students, because I don't personally get discouraged easily. He also talks about how "we ourselves feel when we ask a colleague to read one of our drafts (apologetic and vulnerable)" (317). That statement should serve as another reminder to be wary of addressing the audience and/or using first person--because that's not how I feel at all.

The students' comments to teachers' responses were expected and funny. The idea to put positive and negative comments at the end is intuitive....but I guess not if it needed to be stressed. Personally, I comment very little if at all on the final draft. I use rubrics to inform students of the strengths and weaknesses of the paper and project. (I assign projects, not papers. Projects include outlines, reflections, technology, first and final drafts, peer editing sessions, and Writing Center visits. Student are graded on all aspects of the project, not just the final paper as final project.)

Final Project: Thoughts

I like the Digital Writing Month idea. The site looks pretty cool, and I think our project would fit in nicely.

My contribution to the final project would be a personal narrative about the first time my writing was valued--at millions of dollars!  I never saw a penny of that cash, but neither did a CTC (chlortetracycline) factory in rural China. More on that in my story...

Weekly Response: "Bi, Butch and Bar Dyke: Pedagogical Performances of Class, Gender & Sexuality"

[T]his article examines the way three feminist, queer teachers of writing experience and perform their gender, class, and sexual identities. (70)

This reading seemed overly scholarly at first, and I had to look up expressivist and compositionist. Later, it became reflections of 3 lesbian professors and where they fit in their roles in academia.

Weekly Response: Peter Elbow's "Voice in Writing Again: Embracing Contraries"

I'm going to write this weekly response differently from the others and see how I like it. It will be more of a reflection after reading than a note-taking and response.

This week's reading by Peter Elbow talks about voice, obviously. I know the term but didn't know there was so much controversy surrounding it. Well of course you can hear voice in writing, but tuning it out is important, too. I enjoyed how he argued first for and then against teaching and reading voice. Neat how he proved the importance and validity of both sides. That's certainly an uncommon way to write a persuasive essay.

Weekly Response: Hartwell's "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar"

Click for the Weekly Response.

This is a response to Patrick Hartwell's "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar."

This is one of my Discussion Lead assignments. It was supposed to be about 2 pages. I went a little wild with it....

Weekly Response: Peter Elbow's "Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking"

Click to see the Weekly Response.

This is a response to Peter Elbow's "Ranking, Evaluating and Liking: Sorting Out Three Forms of Judgment"

This is one of my Discussion Lead assignments. I went a little over the page count, sorry.

More Thoughts on our Final Project, and a shout out to Melissa

In thinking further about our final project, I agree with Melissa's last post. She said she would like to create lesson plans or design a course. I agree. I'd prefer to make a compilation of lesson plans / best practices and tie them to theory. The final product of ideas #1, #2, and #3 are all very similar. If we each choose the way we want to present our lessons, anti, online, print, they could still all be part of the same compilation (because print will start as an electronic document anyway).

Thoughts on Our Final Project

These are just some random thoughts about our final project. I'll be happy with whatever we decide as a group, whether it incorporates any of my ideas or not.

If we stick with the handbook idea, we need to nail down who the audience is--teachers or students? If it is teachers, what level are they teaching?  If students, what grade? I'd rather a handbook for educators than a handbook for students. That might be more easily published through Dr. Zamora's contacts, not sure. Also, I don't personally have any interest in making a print book, but certainly any online resource would have printable pages. That might satisfy the urge for paper.

Weekly Response: Yancey's "On Reflection"

Yancey talks about reflection as a method of learning. She starts by giving a brief history much like those we read about in readings like Fulkerson and Lauer. In the 70's professors started to teach process; then they focused on cognitive writing, examining how experienced writers create texts for their audiences; then expressivism, how writers express themselves; then post-process or cultural studies, how students engage with a topic and write about it. Reflection did not play a part in this recent evolution of composition pedagogy.

Weekly Response: Nancy Sommers's "Responding to Student Writing"

Nancy Sommers asserts that writing teachers spend most of their time "responding to and commenting on student writing." Amen. I read 100 essays this weekend. Sommers begins to quantify time spent commenting on student writing. Here's the math:

Low end = 20 minutes per paper X 20 students X 8 papers per semester = 53.33 hours/semester
or, expressed in 8-hour work days, that would be approximately 7 days of work per semester.
High end = 40 minutes per paper X 20 students X 8 papers per semester = 106.66 hours/semester
or, expressed in 8-hour work days, that would be just over 13 work days per semester.

Yes, that's how it was until I discovered the beauty of both the Writing Center for responding to student writing and rubrics for commenting on final papers. Now, I'm below the low end estimates.

Weekly Response: Fulkerson's "Composition at the Turn of the 21st Century"

Fulkerson accomplishes his stated goal: to show that the field of Rhetoric and Composition has become divided into many different camps and ideologies. He offers neither guidance nor opinion as to which pedagogies or ideologies he prefers; rather, he simply explains the differing views and seems to endorse none of them. He raises various useful questions, such as what to accomplish with students, and how, while providing little guidance towards answers.

I am very interested in his views, as he is a director of a first-year college writing program, and I am a professor of first-year college writing.

Weekly Response: Donald Murray's "Teach Writing as a Process Not Product"

Mr. Murray writes this piece to convince instructors to focus on process, not product, when teaching writing. He asserts that students are often criticized by instructors who do not value their writing as literature, the field in which the instructors were trained. By teaching process, teachers will focus on different competencies leading students to create better products.

This essay was written in 1972, and therefore would have been aimed at the Current-Traditional pedagogies popular then, and those who embraced them.

The process should focus on discovery, invention, knowledge creation and evaluation, and communication.

"Instead of teaching finished writing, we should teach unfinished writing, and glory in its unfinishedness." 

Weekly Response: Janice Lauer's "Rhetoric and Composition"

The author begins by explaining exactly what the reader can expect to learn by reading the chapter. Lauer sets out to explain the advent of rhetoric and composition as a field of study, which began in the early 60's and has had much growth, debate, controversy, research and scholarship over the past 40+ years. Study of rhetoric was common in the ancient world, but was not common in modern times until it resurfaced decades ago to accompany composition and grammar instruction.

In the 60's, scholars at a CCCC conference began to investigate the relationship between rhetoric and composition.  They determined that rhetoric helps students develop their composition skills. It helped them raise questions, choose topics, and develop and strengthen arguments. Scholars turned to writings of classic orators to further their research and theories. Then, scholars at the newly formed Rhetoric Society of America began to question the administrative practice of hiring part time instructors for college composition classes and the pedagogy used in those classes.

Pre First Homework Reading

A few pages into this reading, I realized it was pretty dry, and I worried about focusing on and learning all 48 pages. So I used the tactic I've been using since high school. I got out some nail polish. My strategy with a boring book has always been to give myself a good manicure so that I'm stuck in one spot for a while waiting for it to dry. That's a perfect time to knock out some reading. At the end of about 45 minutes, I have successfully accomplished two things: a perfect smudge-free manicure and a completed reading assignment.


All done. The good news is that there were 18 and a half pages of notes and citations. What I thought was 48 pages of reading was really only 30. More good news is that the article was dense but informative, outlining and detailing the history of Rhetoric and Composition as a field of study. Tomorrow I'll review the reading again and write my weekly reflection. Nails look great, right?

For my own reference, here is our class website.