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One of my favorite progressions in the A section is arguing through
text, it is the third progression, and actually the second exercise we
do for that progression is a dialog. We ask the students to write a
dialog based on some of the readings they have been doing. And what was
great their essay was about Facebook and how it affects identity, so I
had given them some readings from either psychology journals or from the
news about that topic. And then they were able to do a discussion
between themselves and two of the authors from one of those readings and
it was great. The students got so creative about it, they were hosting
talk shows, or doing it through a radio lens, or having everybody meet
in a coffee shop. So that they set up the setting then did the dialog.
But I think the best part of that is then I actually saw them address a
counter argument within their essays and this was the first semester
within their second draft, every single one of my students actually
attempted at getting to a counter argument, and I really attribute that
to the dialog exercise they had to do.
This semester we are coming to this right now and it is based sorta
after a Socratic dialog, and where you know you are engaging
discussions, and they can choose, they can choose whether they want two
of these authors to be involved in a discussion or they can choose,
imagine a person who is arguing or just engaging in discussion with one
of these authors on the topic.
I do not permit figures from popular culture, but I have my students
look at the essays I have provided basically for progression 3 they are
working with literacy narratives, and they will be writing their own
literacy narrative, so from the selection of literacy narratives I
provide I have them picture these writers together in a discussion on
Facebook and what they might be writing on each others Walls, what they
would disagree about, so we are using New Media, but not figures from
pop culture.
You know there is what you are going to be arguing, what is the kinds of
things, what is the methods you will be using. I actually use this for
the 115 in the project as well. They write a proposal project and they
write a proposal for the third progression because its a different genre
of writing and they might have to do proposals in their different
disciplines that they go to after this class so it is an argumentative
proposal that they are stating their point they are making their
argument as a whole about their topic that might change, which is fine,
which happens in a proposal.
I find this reflection paper very significant especially as the students
are moving from semester A to semester B because this is a process
driven curriculum and this gives the students the opportunity to reflect
on their own writing process, what they have learned and essentially
they can work towards transferring what they have learned to the next
semester.
As they write their reflective essay and they look back at their
portfolio, it helps them write a stronger reflective essay.
And they also get the idea of audience, you know I tell them its not
just me, I am not your audience, and then they get a realistic sense of
audience, and they say oh other professors are reading my essays, and
its like yeah I am just the representative of this audience you are
writing to. You are also in this academic community as students right so
then it becomes sort of a community learning experience.
Of course its for instructors to instructors too, so we can see what
they are learning in the classroom. But most importantly its a real ego
boosting moment for them when they realize when I came in here sixteen
weeks ago I was terrified of this class, and now that we have done these
exercises together, I have learned X, Y and Z. And I tell them when
they write this letter dont tell me if you had fun or if you thought
supplemental instruction was cool, but really what did you learn.
Articulate three or four things you didnt know before you came into this
class, and it makes them proud of themselves.
I do do formal lessons on library research, I touch on web research and
we use a lot the databases that the university provides, but I do limit
them to a number of sources, so I do the bulk of the research, and then
I give them choices. The Oviatt Library has a program there and I send
my students, we make an appointment, and we send them to the library and
the librarians there, the teaching librarians are excellent, it takes a
load off of teachers, and there they are told how to do online research
and how to do hands on books research in the library. I recommend it to
all of the instructors, its a resource for us, use it.
I do ask my students to work with MLA format throughout the whole
semester, but I do not grade their ability to use MLA format. Basically
I have them focus on their ideas and communicating to an audience using
a rhetorical approach.
I do use MLA but I have in the past introduced both MLA and APA because
when I looked at my roster none of my students were anywhere close to
the humanities, so I gave them a choice if they wanted to use APA, and I
went over both in class. If they wanted to use APA they could use APA.
Grading is always an issue for instructors, its a lot of grading to do.
I find that allowing students, since we are forming a community anyway,
to not grade each others work but provide feedback. Im pretty lenient,
I like if you do the work, youll get credit for it, Im grading only your
final draft of your essays. If you do progressions 1.1 and 1.2, 1.3
youll get full credit for that, I am not going to go A,B,C, D. I tell
them to hand it off to a peer, have them read it, and give you feed
back. And they dont mind providing that feedback for each other.