I just want to keep to keep ya'll updated on the readings for next week. Remember we are on our fist stage of the writing project. You can find the reading on the home page. Please let me know as soon as you can if you are not able to view the reading. I know that at least one person wasn't able to see it.. I will be more than happy to directly send you the article.
I want to remind everyone that thus far you have begun to discuss your experiences with writing, so that this information should be used to dig deeper into your relationship with literacy. Start examining it much closer. Be specific in your experience and ways to bridge the gap for a comprehensive understanding of the overall material.
Assignments: Response papers will be due for the Diaz article and first half of the Downs/Wardle piece.
Here is Stage 1:
English 1301 Writing Project
Stage 1-Reflecting on Reading, Writing, and Learning
It's a writing class, so you’re going to write something for me on day one. You can read through our syllabus and the Downs and Wardle article before our next class, and I'll read a little bit about all of you.
There are several things I want to know about each of you so I can get to know you as individual writers and so that I can start to adapt to your past experiences, your current needs, and your potential desires when it comes to the class. To help me get at that info, I want you to do two things in class today. First, I want you to read an excerpt from the first article we’ll be reading together by Doug Downs and Elizabeth Wardle. In this excerpt, they discuss college writing student.
Source
Downs, Douglas, and Elizabeth Wardle. “Teaching about Writing, Righting Misconceptions: (Re)Envisioning ‘First-Year Composition’ as ‘Introduction to Writing Studies.’” CCC 58.4 (2007): 552-84.
Full Article Overview (Abstract) from Article
In this article we propose, theorize, demonstrate, and report early results from a course that approaches first-year composition as Introduction to Writing Studies. This pedagogy explicitly recognizes the impossibility of teaching a universal academic discourse and rejects that as a goal for first-year composition. It seeks instead to improve students’ understanding of writing, rhetoric, language, and literacy in a course that is topically oriented to reading and writing as scholarly inquiry and that encourages more realistic conceptions of writing.
Excerpt
Jack and “English” (writing and reading) have never been friends, and they still are not.... But they have perhaps come to an understanding.
A twenty-nine-year-old chemistry major, Jack had tried college immediately after high school but decided that “the almighty dollar” looked better, so he worked as a state corrections officer before regaining the desire to return to college. Though articulate, thoughtful, and bright, Jack lacked self-confidence. His writing apprehension made his semester a long struggle to simply complete assignments. Although Jack earned only a C-, largely because of incomplete work, we include his story to illustrate how the course can work for less well-prepared students.
As his literacy narrative reveals, Jack’s experiences with English (again, both writing and reading) in grade school, high school, and college convinced him that he could do nothing right on paper:
I had very bad experiences that went back as far as I can remember. My mother, sisters, and father were all very good at English and could not understand how I was getting such bad grades in the classes. At one time, my father even said I was stupid. I guess I started to believe him and just kind of gave up. It got to the point that I just didn’t care, and I almost didn’t graduate from high school. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about everything, just those things I wasn’t good at. I loved Chemistry and Physics and Math, I had taken AP classes in all of those subjects and did well. It was just the English thing. (Reflective Letter)
Now that you’ve read through this excerpt about Jack’s experiences, I want you join the conversation about what many college students initially think of as “English.” I want to know what you think about writing, even how your ideas compare to Jack’s. I want to learn your language of writing and build out of it rather than just forcing a new terminology on you. So, think about the following questions as you respond:
- Downs and Wardle give us a profile of Jack. What would your profile include? What are the moments that you think define your relationship to reading and writing?
- What have your experiences been like with writing, reading, and learning--what Jack might refer to as the “English thing”?
- How do your experiences with writing, reading, and learning in school compare to your experiences with those things outside of school?
- How does learning work for you when it goes well? What happens when it doesn't?
- What are your expectations for this class, a first-year college writing class? Where did you get these expectations from?
Do you have to try to answer all these questions? No. Work with what interests you, what gets your brain working, or even what annoys you.
Is there a specific length to aim for? I want your writing to be long enough to help me understand who you think you are as a reader, writer, and thinker.
