Week 1: Wednesday, January 19
Introductions & Discuss Syllabus
It's important that we get to know each other and become a little more comfortable, so I'd like you to introduce yourself by talking a little bit about your experience teaching writing (if any) and what you hope to get out of our class.
Group Work
In small groups, discuss the following questions about what it means to learn and how learning works:
• what things does learning involve?
• what processes does learning involve?
• what are the products of learning?
• if you like to think metaphorically, what is a good metaphor for learning?
Now, I'd like you to come up with a diagram (one––or more, if necessary––per group) that shows how you think learning works and share it with the rest of us.
Next, I'd like you (individually) to go find a computer, get on our class blog and write for a little while, making some connections between learning and writing. Under the post "Writing and Learning" (on the Home page), respond to the following questions.
• What role does writing play in learning (or vice versa)?
• What are the purpose(s) of first-year writing classes? What role(s) do you think they should play in students' lives and in the life of the university?
Once you’re done, read through your classmates’ entries and respond to a few. I’d like you to make your first post by 10:00pm tonight, and then you can read and respond to your classmates by Friday evening.
Homework for Wednesday, January 26
Read Brandt and Yancey and write a weeklie over them. Also, read over the research project assignment and begin thinking about questions you have about the teaching of writing that intersect with first-year composition (remember that you still have a ton of leeway to link your own interests to the specific context of our class).
Week 2: Wednesday, January 26
Yancey:
1. Some important themes in Yancey's article are that writing has often been seen as a "rudimentary skill" and as playing a "predominant role in the testing of students" (3). How do those themes play out over time? What are the problems with thinking about writing in these ways? How would she prefer we think of writing and the teaching of writing?
2. Yancey notes several transformative moments in the history of writing and writing instruction, several of which have occurred in the last 50 years. What are some of those shifts, and why are they important?
3. What marks this time as the "Age of Composition"? What are some of the key characteristics of this new age? What is "self-sponsored" writing (Yancey 4), and what role does it play in Yancey's overall arguments? Think about why she writes about Tiffany and the AP students.
4. In her conclusions, Yancey says that we need to define writing "apart from testing" (7), that "We need to become serious about helping students become citizen composers instead of good test takers" (8). What does that mean to you as a future teacher? How might we learn to "think of writing as a subject" (7)?
2. Yancey notes several transformative moments in the history of writing and writing instruction, several of which have occurred in the last 50 years. What are some of those shifts, and why are they important?
3. What marks this time as the "Age of Composition"? What are some of the key characteristics of this new age? What is "self-sponsored" writing (Yancey 4), and what role does it play in Yancey's overall arguments? Think about why she writes about Tiffany and the AP students.
4. In her conclusions, Yancey says that we need to define writing "apart from testing" (7), that "We need to become serious about helping students become citizen composers instead of good test takers" (8). What does that mean to you as a future teacher? How might we learn to "think of writing as a subject" (7)?
Brandt:
1. What does Brandt learn from her research about our early attitudes towards reading and writing? What does she suggest some of the reasons might be for why we don’t have similar attitudes towards/experiences with writing as we do with reading?
2. What does Brandt tell us about the relative importance of reading and writing in school? Do her findings square with your own experiences as teachers and students?
3. In the final section, "Compelling Literacy," Brandt explains why what she's been writing about matters. What does she say? What difference does knowing what she's researched/written make?
4. If she replicated her research now in the Valley, do you think she'd find similar attitudes towards reading and writing? If not, how might they be different (if you had to guess)?
2. What does Brandt tell us about the relative importance of reading and writing in school? Do her findings square with your own experiences as teachers and students?
3. In the final section, "Compelling Literacy," Brandt explains why what she's been writing about matters. What does she say? What difference does knowing what she's researched/written make?
4. If she replicated her research now in the Valley, do you think she'd find similar attitudes towards reading and writing? If not, how might they be different (if you had to guess)?
Discuss Researched Project Assignment & Potential Research Questions
What research question(s) are you interested in pursuing? Write each down and explain why you're interested in pursuing those questions. If there's time, talk with your group about your question(s) and brainstorm some ways to find answers to your question(s). Be sure you leave me what you've written (write your question down for yourself if you need to); I'll take a look this week and see if there's anything I need to talk with you about before you get started.
Homework for Wednesday, February 2
Read Connors, Kinneavy, Lindemann, & Elbow and write weeklie (remember to email it to me). Next week, I’ll be out of town at a meeting about college and career readiness, so we’ll be conducting our class discussions online on the blog. You’ll find posts to respond to on the “Home” tab. Please make sure you've written at least one comment per post by 4:30pm on Wednesday. Then, you can use our class time to 1) read through everyone else's comments and 2) write additional responses to each post based on what your classmates said in their posts and what that makes you think about. So, at least 2 "comments" per post. I'll read your posts while I'm away, and we'll do any follow-up discussion that might be necessary on the 9th when we meet again face-to-face.
Week 3: Wednesday, February 2
Remember that we're having our class online this week since I'm out of town. Go to the Home page of our blog, and you'll find questions there for you to discuss.
Discuss Connors & Kinneavy
Discuss Connors & Kinneavy
1. What is "discourse"?
2. What are the "modes" of discourse? What are "aims" of discourse?
3. What arguments are Connors and Kinneavy making about the aims and modes of discourse?
4. What might the benefits and drawbacks of focusing on the aims and/or modes of discourse be? Were you taught or are you asked to teach the modes? If so, what's your experience been like?
Elbow & Lindemann
1. What is the "war" between reading and writing? Work your way through the conflicts and the ways that reading is privileged over writing. Why, according to Elbow, would it be good to end the privileging of reading over writing?
2. What are Lindemann's arguments against teaching literature in first-year writing courses?
3. How do Lindemann and Elbow want us to teach writing? What do you think about their ideas?
Homework for Wednesday, February 9: Read WPA outcomes statement, Fulkerson, David_Gordon_Pollard, & Downs & Wardle and write weeklie.
Week 4: Wednesday, February 9
Discuss WPA Outcomes, Fulkerson, David et al, and Downs & Wardle
All of the readings this week address the controversy surrounding the "ends" of first-year writing classes. Fulkerson discusses critical/cultural studies pedagogies, expressivism, and three rhetorical approaches. Downs & Wardle argue for a conception of fyc as an Intro to Writing Studies. Then, we've got the WPA Outcomes statement and the David et al article trying to come to some common assumptions and ideas about the purposes of the fyc course.
Group Activity: There are lots of distinctions to be made here, differences to be teased out, which means we need to work through each of these major pedagogies/purposes for first-year writing and see what sense we can make of them. What are of each of these writers, and in the case of the Outcomes statement, the WPA organization, trying to argue for and why? Work through these things in your group; this will probably take at least 45 minutes, maybe more.
Synthetic discussion: What, if any assumptions, did you have about the purposes of first-year writing before you read the stuff from last week and this week? How have your assumptions been complicated, supported, challenged, etc.? What are the most important questions you think you should ask yourself before you teach first-year writing again (or for the first time)?
What's being done?--Internet & First-hand Research
Do some research on how writing is taught at various universities, community colleges, AP and dual credit/concurrent enrollment courses—via internet, documents like syllabi, writing assignments, course descriptions, etc.
What did you find? What seem to be the goals of first-year composition at the places you studied?
Research Questions: Helping Each Other
I'd like you to share your research question(s) with your group members. Where should you start trying to find answers to your question? Where could you do secondary research? Is primary research appropriate, and if so, about what and with whom? I'd like you to feel pretty comfortable about starting your research before you leave tonight, so make sure you ask any questions you have about the project so far.
Homework for Wednesday, February 16
Read Sommers-Revision, Murray, and Moffett, and write weeklie.
