All aboard the Ship(ka)

In Shipka's article, the ideas that she presents seem to set up an inclusive classroom that aims to help students use the technology effectively, and make students realize that there is a difference between writing and composing. Firstly, I like the idea that we have to show students the difference. I don’t, however jive with her ideas on how we do that. I don’t think that writing about writing would be beneficial in a FYC because they don’t have the confidence and the skills to be meta-aware. I think there are several ways in her article that she connects with what I believe to be good practice and want to include into my own (future FYC) classes.

The summary synthesis reports would boast a kind of process for the students and allow them to have easily available all of their summaries, notes, and thoughts about the readings. It also would serve to keep the discussion moving and that is the most difficult part of an FYC because for most students, they still feel very out of place in their knowledge acquisition, and expression of said knowledge. They will also use these reports in order to broaden their interpretations of the readings by sharing what they have gotten from it versus what their classmates have gotten from it. This will help them see that there is not one true answer but a vast array of readings and understandings.

The other part of her plan that I particularly feel drawn to is the work-shopping. When I teach my FYC, I can envision myself using this part to help brain storm, as well to help supplement their progress and information gathering. As humans, we all tend to want the opinions and thoughts of others even if we say we do not and giving the students this opportunity will only further allow them to collaborate and expand their views of composing and the course itself. It is often after a discussion with a peer that my mind is eased and my thoughts become clearer and this will help the students contextualize their arguments for an audience while giving them the opportunity to explain their positions, and provide reasoning, as well.

In my time at Universities (SFA and UHD), I often found Blackboard discussion boards to be a tedious, arduous task but have come to appreciate them for what they attempt to do. Having a discussion board open and required will allow for some of the quiet students to let their opinions be heard, to give relevant information, and to foster their own skills of communicating so that when they are in class, they feel comfortable speaking up or sharing. At this point in the game (depending on when you choose to implement the BB DF) students may be hesitant about what they are composing and reading someone else’s ideas can help them see that when you compose, you can still write, and you can still have that bit of yourself in your work.

Victoria said it best when she said that writing is natural and composing is intentional and I believe that with the right training, guidance, and mentoring, all students will be able to write with intention.

Shipka, Jody.  “Beyond Text and Talk: A Multimodal Approach to First Year Composition.” First-Year Composition From Theory To Practice. Ed. Coxwell-Teague, Deborah and Lunsford, Ronald F.  Anderson:  Parlor Press, 2014.  211-235. Print.

Literacies and their Inclusion

There are several types of literacy and we are firmly planted in the newest age of technological dependency. Being literate in terms of traditional composition and being literate in technology, I feel, are not the same. A small child can be literate in the uses of a tablet, knowing which buttons to push to get to their desired app yet they could not produce a text. It seems that the direction technology is taking education the facilitator of the education will be needed in an expanded role. As educators, many of us are already the givers of knowledge but now we will have to be the technological support, especially if we include, which seems like a must, the multimodal approach to composition. Yancey puts forth this idea of technology mapping in her four quartets and as composition professors, it becomes important for us to be the topographers in this technological map. Students, especially today, will come in being very well versed in technology but will need to situate their use of technology into the educational sphere. They come in knowing how to do the basics of interactions, tweeting, youtubing, creating vines, etc. but many don’t connect these practices with composition. This is a whole different kind of literacy.

The literacy that they come in with from their time in High School will provide a jumping off point in terms of traditional schooling but will have to be refined and polished to include the basics of composing texts beyond the 26 lines they are accustomed. We must incorporate them into the connected world of university life. How might this be done? I very much appreciated Dr. Dimmick’s ideas of creating a personal narrative of their involvement with the University because it allows the student to realize their place in the college while expressing their own style and voice. The way that they might situate those personal narratives will be very telling of how they view themselves and the world around them. As freshman, many of them will still be reeling from the freedoms presented to them in a school setting by allowing them to pick their own class schedule, wear whatever they want, and for some of the boys, (as innocent as it sounds) allow them to wear their facial hair without harassment from admin. It is important to let them situate themselves into their own collegiate experience and having a multimodal assignment where the students are expected to bring in their own technology will help them contextualize the true autonomy they will experience in their 4+ years. It is the duty of professors of English to let them express themselves but also to teach them that in doing so, they are still developing the skills necessary to help them thrive in later classes.

As Banks points out though, not all students will come in being technologically literate enough to do this type of assignment effectively from the beginning and that is why the technological literacy of the professor will come in handy. The University is the place where the technological divide should be bridged. It is our responsibility as professors and educators to extend opportunity to all students in the classroom, and the realization that not all digital natives are presented with the opportune technological lessons to develop their technological literacies and that this does not make their contributions in our classes any less than those of their peers who are extremely proficient with technology use.

Banks, Adam J.  “Oakland, the Word, and the Divide How we all Missed the Moment.”  Cross-Talk in Comp Theory.  Ed. Villanueva, Victor and Arola, Kristin L.  Urbana:  National Council of Teachers of English, 2011.  827-868.  Print.

Yancey, Kathleen Blake.  “Made Not Only in Words Composition in a New Key.”  Cross-Talk in Comp Theory.  Ed. Villanueva, Victor and Arola, Kristin L.  Urbana:  National Council of Teachers of English, 2011.  791-826.  Print.

SRTOL

I have a lot of reservations about implementing Students' Right to Their Own Language. I understand the basis of making a student feel included academically but many of us lack an integral part of rejecting norms and going all outside of the realm of "tradition." If we are to create a safe, welcoming environment for our students in FYC, then I think that, of course, we should allow them their own language but one's own language, can be used in a scholarly way. How do we get them to the scholarly way? I believe this to be the main problem we all face when implementing Students' Right to Their Own Language. From the beginning of the class, the student may be lacking confidence, direction, and/or motivation, and allowing them their linguistic freedom may promote their involvement, but at some point, we as educators must be able to teach them when they should shift their language to that of SWE and EAE.  It would be a harsh disservice to those "customers" if we left them lacking in skills that will follow them to every single class, and their eventual professions.

I propose that we embrace SRTOL but do so in such a way, the knowledge of SWE is still transferred and used further down the line while maintaining the writer's own self. Redd, in her article, writes, "I encourage students to write about issues of concern to the African-American community so that they can confront and critique the dominant culture and rewrite the story of their own" (149). Writing is an ever-changing discipline because of the changing society of today and students should be able to express themselves in a manner that will make both student and professor happy.

"We should begin our work in composition with them by making the fell confident that their writing, in whatever dialect, makes sense and is important to us, that we read it and are interested in the ideas and person that the writing reveals. Then students will be in a much stronger position to consider the rhetorical choices that lead to statements written in EAE" (CCCC).

If we give them the confidence, the knowledge, and the tools to implement the knowledge students can easily adapt and realize when a certain situation calls for their own language, or EAE.

http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Groups/CCCC/NewSRTOL.pdf

Redd, Teresa. "'Talkin bout Fire Don't Boil the Pot': Putting Theory into Practice in a First-Year Writing Course at an HBCU." First-Year Composition From Theory to Practice. Eds., Deborah Coxwell-Teague, Ronald F. Lunsford. Anderson: Parlor Press, 2014. 146-183. Print.

An FYC for the people, of the people, by the people?

As we read through these articles bolstering student participation, student adaptation (on the part of the professor), and student negotiation, I begin to realize that the type of democratic negotiating system that Shor stands behind is very similar to how my classes have worked over the last 10 years of my higher learning. It is not explicit to Shor’s 4 points (rewrites, After-class group, protests, and the A-B-C Proposal plan) but they’ve seemingly included a few of these elements, namely rewrites and the ABC plan. From the beginning of the class we know that we have our syllabus and that these are the requirements of the class, the contract of our enrollment in that class. You always aim for the “A” and many teachers have had distinctions on what you as a student should do in order to obtain that “A” but those guidelines were never negotiable. Negotiating as a teacher with a student, in my own mind, would devalue my professional input to their degree of work but would also let the student feel more connected to the instruction they were receiving.

If we think about education as a commodity, my students should be able to get the most “bang for their buck” and leave the class feeling as though they’ve gained something in their English life that can translate into the rest of their collegiate career. This would mean that as a professor, I would almost have to negotiate with the students, allow them the rewrites, and allow for the protestation of grades. It would be difficult to hold an ACG because of time restrictions or participation but the other parts of Shor’s ideas seem completely doable in an FYC course. Having this type of course would also lend itself to the ebbs and flows that inevitably mold a university semester by allowing for students to have an autonomy and control of their grade that would free up many problems students might face in relation to their grade down the line because essentially, they have chosen their grades from the beginning and set out on the path to an “A” by completing the steps laid out for them in the beginning.

The rewrites in the class are beneficial for the student who will come in not being an expert (of course!) on SWE and over the course of the semester have the opportunity to see their work transform from their own dialect into SWE. To have this kind of transformation, I think we would have to take into consideration what Zhan-Lu is pushing for and that is an acceptance and a further inclusion of multiculturalism in the classroom and the University. Ownership of the course by the professor and an acceptance of their student’s own language will vastly improve the feel, outcome, and aura of a FYC course and allow the students a safe environment to grow in their writing. The toughest part will be to break (gently) those students from their pre-conceived notions about having an error free assignment. The language comes first; the mechanics will follow when they can find their own voice, their ownership, and their way in University life, and academia.

Shor, Ira. “Critical Pedagogy Is Too Big to Fail.” Journal of Basic Writing 28.2 (2009): 6-27. Print.

Lu, Min-Zhan. "Professing Multiculturalism The Politics of Style in the Contact Zone." Cross-Talk in Comp Theory. Ed. Victor Villanueva, Kristin L. Arola. Urbana : National Council of Teachers of English, 2011. 467-483. Print. 

Yancey!

Most of my life, I’ve had an appetite for reading but not so much with writing. I’m not a “creative” type so I’ve always turned away from expressing myself in a written manner. On the odd occasion I would journal, especially online at the turn of the 21^st century (MySpace, anybody??), when putting things on the internet for all to see was still relatively quiet and not as hugely popular but I gave up on that quickly because I wasn’t able to fully process my thoughts, feelings, etc., in writing. Guess what? I’m still not a creative writer who enjoys writing. I enjoy analyzing. However, when I do write, I can succinctly pinpoint my arguments, prove them with textual evidence and compose a paper worthy of any Professor. But how can I do this? According to the reading by Yancey, “Attempting the Impossible,” we write to convey understanding not to develop knowledge on a subject, quoting from Applebee and Langer, “’Give the constraints imposed by high-stakes tests, writing as a way to study, learn, and go beyond—as a way to construct knowledge or generate new networks of understandings…is rare’” (326). I am a Native Texan. I have gone through the school system in Texas, and I work in the school system in Texas. I have always been taught that writing is a way to convey your understanding and unfortunately it is taking me a little while to overcome this falsehood. Writing is an art, that some people do just naturally come by but for others, they cannot form the thoughts in to a coherent, organized paper, and THAT IS OKAY! It takes a bit of work. Yancey has advocated for this, Redd advocated for this (last week) and the idea by Breuch in her article about “Post-Process” has no place in my compositional pedagogy ideology. Her thoughts on writing being something that cannot be taught goes against what I am more inclined to believe by Yancey because she says, “It is important, in a Vygotskian way, that the assignment asks students to revisit an experience of their own choosing so as to make meaning of it for others” (326). To put her into context she is describing 4 advantages for beginning a FYC Course with a narrative style paper, and this allows the students to 1) connect to prior knowledge, 2) challenges their school-based learning (which is the hardest part of growing up, am I right?) 3) validation of their experiences through validation of their writing about those experiences and 4) helping students to see new ways of approach and organizing material. This process will help connect the students not only to their paper but they’ll have something to look back on to judge their progress against, they’ll have the affirmation that what they are saying makes sense, or at least how they can eventually make it make sense, and gives them the opportunity to build a process unique to their writing style and way of learning. We are not factory made, regulated human-bots. Every person is different, every writer is different.

And then I thought...

Pedagogy is a strange word. It takes a bit of practice and repetition before you really get the flow of it and can move into words like Pedagogical and what not but what's most important about Pedagogy is the definition. It is the practice of education. Education is something that we all have some dealings in, either regretfully or gleefully. What really draws me into Pedagogy is the connection I have with learning. I immensely enjoy teaching and seeing the connections students make to the information being presented, how it relates to their life, and how they've improved it over the course of their education. Writing in its educational practice should always include topics that a student relates to or feels “at home” with. When a student has a passionate connection that extends beyond the border of school (whether physical or figurative) you really see the student start to take pride in what they’re writing and really develop their skills. Ownership of one’s writing and in extension, beliefs is one of life’s basic fundamentals. But how do we gain this pride? How do we figure out the ownership? I struggle with this and other questions but have found a road that may lead me to my answer!

Teresa Redd states in her article “’Talkin bout Fire Don’t Boil the Pot’: Putting Theory into practice in a First-Year writing Course at an HBCU” how English 101 “cannot limit itself to academic purposes for writing.” She then goes on to say, that the CCCC warns “’to restrict students’ engagement with writing to only academic contexts and forms is to risk narrowing what we as a nation can remember, understand, and create.’” There it is. There is the first step for students taking ownership of their writing. I never disliked writing but I never thought I excelled at it or that I had this ability to coherently shape and mold my inner thoughts in to an argument, an analysis, a paper. It all begins though with just simply writing. As human beings, we will never do something with a fervor and passion unless we are passionate about the topic of choice. Her words in this article resonate with my educational and pedagogical ideas that we first must establish the students’ ability to write, and be COMFORTABLE in writing by allowing them to find a topic that resonates and write, write, write. Right?

Redd also mentions theorists suggesting our thoughts are incoherent in our own head but can be put into formed thoughts, opinions, and reflections because of our ability to write. This idea of writing to put out ideas works the opposite way as well, in that often times our brains remember what we have written (that is, new information) more easily than simply reading or listening. Writing relies on that passion, that spark that we try to kick start in our students and that passion for writing starts by showing them how to take ownership of their writing. The road is paved with crumpled balls of paper, an overflowing trash can here and there but ends with thoughts organized, shared, and appreciated.