Teaching Writing

      There was a lot of dense information in chapter four of the Lindemann text.  However, the part that interested me most was when Lindemann discussed the positive and negative connotations associated with the word rhetoric. Negative: "Rhetoric, so defined, is a fraudulent practice intended  to give some people an advantage over others by appealing to their emotions or prejudices, but not to their intelligence." (pg 39) Positive: "...writers of great literature have employed powerful language to make us cry, to poke fun at our human frailties, and to command our support for important causes." (pg 39) Lindemann then goes on to state that rhetoric is a tool and those who employ its functions are not inherently good or bad.   This entire part of the chapter made me think of Saul Goodman, a fictional criminal lawyer in the Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul television series.  He is a character with a charismatic grip of language and rhetoric, who o...

On page 545, Comfort writes about "self-disclosures" and connects Jordan to Mike Tyson. This resonated with me because it's an issue I have with my writing. How much do I self-disclose? How much is too much? I'm not talking about disclosing embarrassing things; instead, I wonder how much a writer is allowed to be in the story before a readers asks, "Who is this person?" and "Why should I care?" I'd argue a good writer should self-disclose but connect that self-disclosure to something larger to which readers can idenitfy. The Jordan example works well because we see the connection between Jordan and Tyson. If the story was all about Jordan and barely about Tyson, readers might not care because Tyson is the bigger name. If the story was all about Tyson, the piece would read too much like journalism (which isn't bad but not what Jordan was attempting, I think). The blend of self-disclosure with the connection to the outside world is key so rea...

                                                                      These are my thoughts for this week’s readings:   1.) The Tobin piece is thought-provoking to me because it points out how teachers play an important role in the composing process of a student’s writing. The way a teacher reads and interprets their writing will affect how they will provide feedback to a student’s writing, whether positive or negative. The student will usually take what the teacher says on how to improve their writing and apply it to their next draft. Thus, it is very important that we are aware of any biases or presuppositions we have towards a topic a student is writing about or about the student and their writing before we read and respond to their papers. We need to make sure that our advice ...

  Blog #8   Jeanne   As a teacher, it is important to remember that our role does not occur in a vacuum. Rather, our role is not only to teach our students the lessons and skills which are required, necessary and helpful, but to do so with kindness, compassion and positivity. We must treat our students as real people with skills, limitations, emotions and experiences that they bring to the classroom each day.   Keeping this in mind, I would assert that feedback assessment must come in many forms.      Feedback can be instant and informal, it can look like coaching, facilitating, or questioning, it can be formal assessment.   All of these things must be undertaken with the explicit goal of helping and supporting.   Writing comes in many forms and the opportunities for students to practice these forms is vital to an overall improvement in output.   Different types of writing samples provide different types of assessment and feedback ...

The Two Paradoxes of responding is an interesting read. The viewpoint of the reader and writer always being right is kind of weird at first glance when reading. But, after thoroughly reading since both have two different experiences. The second paradox, the writer must sit back quietly too. The writer must be in control. Because it is OUR WRITING. This is something I feel as a writer I care too much about. Especially if it's a personal blog. I am in control and I should only let the reader be a part of that writing process scenario. 

 In reading this week's reading, I can definitely attest that I still was a bit quizzical on what rhetoric truly encompassed. At first, I thought of just composition and its influence on how we theorize composition. However, I now can understand that rhetoric is nearly all encompassing. I would bring up the garish example of how influential it might be. Even negatively, such as the case of Hitler, who was an excellent orator, and as a meager painter, was able to garner so much attention and created such a vile revolution in history; it was not that was a fabulous painter that got him recognition, it was how he spoke and how he was able to draw the crowd in through abusing rhetoric. However, as much as rhetoric could have been viewed negatively, I like that Lindemman elaborates that is served its purpose positively. An example of this is the Declaration of Independence, which was a unique document used to represent a shared notion for all peoples. I think the ornateness of its dicti...

  Hi Everyone, For this week’s blog, I want to mention the Elbow and Belanoff reading about the paradoxes, because those paradoxes are actually very interesting and make total sense! I think these ideas can help teach us about how to be convicted about the messages we want to convert, but also be receptive to things that may make our writing better. These paradoxes can both tackle insecurity (which I have a detrimental amount of) and overconfidence all together. The first paradox, “The reader is always right; The writer is always right,” is interesting because unlike in customer service where only one party possesses agency, both parties possess some agency. (Elbow/ Belanoff 299) They balance each other out because although they possess agency and have some say so in what they say about a writing, they also rely on each other and have to respect what each other say about the writing. They each get to take and leave what they choose from the exchange. Really, thi...

 Hi Everyone,  For this week's blog, I want to mention Kinloch's reading, "Revisiting the Promise of Students' Right to Their Own Language: Pedagogical Strategies," because I found her essay truly profound and inspiring! I was pleasantly surprised because I felt like in reading this, she understood me! A lot of the experiences she mentioned, such as speaking Black English, Spanglish, and its socioeconomic precursors and its academic implications, were very reminiscent of my literacy narrative! I was fine in NYC, but once I left and started college, things drastically changed. Codeswitching became a harsh reality, and though I did not mind it at first, it grew increasingly irritating to have to do it so often. I loved that Kinloch made it crucial to understand the language/literacy/dialect associated with her students' demographic. In my two-fold notes, I wrote, "She gives me Freedom Writers vibes, and I honestly love it! Look at how succ...