Teaching Writing

Regarding the revision process, I definitely feel like the students that Lindemann and Sommers described. As it was, I found it difficult to produce an essay quickly enough and thoughtful enough, so many of my essays in high school were not great, which made the revision process way less effective. Revision was about checking off a list of things that I made sure to include in my paper, but even then, it was all subjective. I remember being in AP Literature and never  finding any hope of scoring about a 4 or 5 on a 9-point scale because I never actually understood what was being asked of me, so imagine trying to correct my work or the work of my peers. Visually, something could look  good, but what did that really mean? These readings, to me, all come back to the same concept: student-centered classrooms. I found all the strategies in the Lindemann chapter incredible helpful. I am truly adopting Lindemann's approaches in my classroom next year because these techniques are so g...

Backtracking, but determined to contribute and catch-up with these readings... Earlier in my career, I told my fellow student-teachers that one of my biggest concerns was my deliver of the curriculum, the content that I would be delivering. Grammar was one of the many things I found myself worrying about: How much instruction should I give? How much is too much ? How do I know I am doing enough so that the next  teacher doesn't come back and tell me I am not doing enough? I always fear of being called out for lacking instruction or not doing it well enough, and I pondered how teachers know that they are doing enough. Rigor, really, was the concern. Several passages and concepts from this week's reading caught my attention, if only to assure me that questioning my approaches to English and grammar studies is meaningless  if for the sole purpose of catering towards my students' next instructor. In Lindemann Ch. 5, thinking about linguistics, it is true that few of us look inw...

                       I wanted to discuss the following aspects of the readings for this week:   1.) I really enjoyed how the text goes into detail how online courses can affect the way students write in their discussions with one another and use rhetoric in their writing to each other in their discussion posts. The initial tendency for when students write in online discussions is to write responses with minimal effort or to simply agree with each other’s posts instead of forming their own arguments or ideas to bring to the discussion. However, a teacher can make comments on student’s written responses and tell them how they can make their written comments include more content and be more well-written. One advantage that I can see for teachers using an online course to teach writing is that when students are peer reviewing each other’s drafts, the teacher can see  all of  the comments they make to each other in ...

 Okay, so I had a hard time finding a used book but I finally acquired one and am catching up. I have absolutely zero intentions on being a teacher although I acknowledge the importance of teachers and pedagogy in society. It's a career I admire but would never want. Personally, I don't think I have the charisma to ever be an educator... also it's not a passion of mine.  Anyways, what I have found interesting so far in the Warnock & Gasiewski text is how they incorporate visual examples with purpose/intention. In particular when demonstrating how to organize an online course, Scott shows the importance of creating a layout to promote clarity. Also the importance of consistency with assignments. From a students perspective I can completely agree....Every professor has their specific formats but the clearer the instructions are the better the student will perform in my opinion. 

 I forgot to mention this oxymoron in my last blog that also fails to calm my anxiety but calms my anxiety at the same time: "If fluidity and multi-directionality are central to the nature of plans." (Rose 11) I just think this is cool and encapsulates the nature of writing. Anyway, I'm talking about Grobman now because she brought up a lot of things I think about myself. I am interested in teaching about African diaspora literature, and am actually writing my thesis on that. It's not the only thing, but it is one of the subjects I am most interested in because I feel it necessary to educate people on the multifacetedness of blackness. There are sooooooo many Black ethnic groups, but we tend to ignore them. Grobman said, "For many students and instructors of Color the classroom is a hostile space virtually all of the time, and especially so when the topic is race," which I could not agree with more. (Grobman 8) I have been noticing that there it is nearly im...

 One of my main problems is that I worry too much about doing what the professor wants. I get hell-bent on making sure I am catering to what a specific professor wants, which is why this class has been interesting because you give us too much freedom for my comfort, which is good! Because learning should not always be comfortable! I am so conditioned to having the voice I think professors want to hear that having to use my own voice is taunting. It's why the Microsoft Word synonym tool is a means of survival for me, because if my word is too simple, I just may have a nervous breakdown. When you gave us these informal blogs with no word count and the word "informal" attached, I feel like I did not even know what that meant. I remember for my first blog, no matter how hard I tried to sound informal,  I still sounded formal. I am still getting past the idea of just writing down my reaction to what I read. I keep feeling the need to give a reaction followed by a synthesis to ...

 I wanted to reflect on your comments on my literacy narrative. I don't know if I should be sharing this in a blog, but I really found them quite fascinating and thought, "Wow! This is why he is the teacher." First, I actually was not writing to my earlier self; I was just writing to any "confused kid" who was in the same boat as me, but it was something that I decided to add in at the last minute and clearly, it showed because you found something there that I could have made stronger. I definitely did not spend that much time on this choice because it was a spur-the-moment thing I really liked while writing, but you caught it right away! I wonder, in a literacy narrative, must I write to my younger self, or can I write to any confused kid, and if so, how would that change your suggestions about how I should go about making that a strong choice. Also calling the thesis statement idea a "tyranny" was hilarious and made me feel a little better that not e...

 I was captivated by Wittman's piece on margin markings being literacy narratives as well. This is so interesting because it's true! Teachers, well good teachers, should constantly evolve and adapt to the times and their student's needs. That's why when she mentioned a robotic paper grader, I was like that's not going to work because even as good as Grammarly is, it is not always correct. But she brought up a point that I had not thought about, which was ever-changing literacy in the changing times. I really loved her idea that margin markings are mini literacy narratives because they reflect the learning that teachers do as they teach. After all, they say that the best way to learn is to teach. I also was blown away when she that as much as the students' work informs her teaching literacy narrative, her teaching literacy narrative also informs their literacy narrative: "But the realization that every mark we make in the margins is itself a literacy narrati...

 Reading "Writing Together" made me realize that the authors relate to readers' feelings. My professor is a jerk is common and results in not earning an A.  Experiencing work online as a student can be rough, given that every teaching pedagogy is different. Discussion boards in classes aren't the same. Personally, face-to-face classes provide more interaction and deeper, rapid answering discussions. If a topic is brought up, at that moment you can ask a follow-up question. A discussion board can on very rare occasions be consistently discussed. Overall, the POV the author provides from a student's perspective helped me as a reader understand perception on both ends. 

  BLOG #12   Jeanne Nixt   Reading the beginning of Warnock and Gasiewski’s book titled Writing Together , the concept of the teacher-pupil relationship, as it is written into books on teaching writing, is very one-sided.   Pratt says that these methods are written from the view point of the teacher and teaching, but “not from the point of view of pupils and pupiling” (p.xiii).   This struck me as something that I have thought about when I was teaching Kindergarten and First grades, that the voices of my students, even if they didn’t add much regarding pedagogical practices or materials to cover, still rated some merit and acknowledgement.   I took into account my students when we wrote our classroom rules together, and when I observed their reactions to certain lessons – tailoring the next lessons to the plans which worked, eliminating those that didn’t. As a student in the TESL program, and a prospective ESL teacher, I have heard a lot about agency ...

The first thing I noticed about the Warnock reading (pp. ix-40) is how it presents an almost perfect play-by-play on how many professors I've had approached online learning during the pandemic, even in online courses I've taken in the past.  From the detailed syllabus to weekly announcements that direct students towards tasks they must complete to communicating on a discussion board, it's interesting to see all of these things broken down into digestible information and relate it back to my own virtual learning experiences. I also like that the text provides not only the instructor's side of how to conduct an online writing course, but also a student's point of view.  Their sections in juxtaposition with one another helps students see how much work goes into the instructor's side of things and vice versa. Diana's response about discussion board posts resonated with me: "Because my peers' physical presences and participation frequency can reveal info...

As I start this blog. I find that I am what people like call a "smart-ass". I want to be witty and clever, but in all honesty. My snark is to hide my discomfort of being forced to write something thatothers can review and thereby critize and belabor my thoughts and feelings. I know people often say that they just wrote anything, but most of the time, especially in classroom settings that is a defesive mechanism. It is the throwing up of an arm to blow potentially hurtful comments. It is a shield to prevent others from wounding them too much or deeply. It is our nature, our human nature. We take things personally it what we do as a species. Now there are some who can shed the slings and arrows easliy, but most when suffering an inflicted wound, will try to grimance and just "walk it off" acting like nothing ever happened. However, the wound does indeed hurt. Most of the times, it is the smallest pain that bothers us the most. Those paper cuts are nasty pieces of work...

                  For this week, these are the things that caught my attention that I wanted to discuss:   1.) In the St. Peter piece, what caught my attention is that she asserts that teachers should be having students write to address rhetorical situations that they will encounter outside of the classroom and in the professional realm. To that end, I like that she endorses having students engage in creative writing assignments that explore multiple genres of writing. I like this framework for teaching writing to students because it helps develop writing skills that will help them get jobs and be successful in their lives with things such as writing for digital media following the completion of their education. I think that this will increase their motivation and confidence in writing because they will be acquiring useful and applicable writing skills that will be relevant to their lives instead of the traditional academic writing assig...

 As someone who has zero experience when it comes to teaching, I found chapter 15 from the Lindemann text to be so eye-opening and so useful. It has so much important and relevant information that allowed me to see what I would be doing in the future as an educator and how to do it. I really liked the way Lindemann showed ways to structure our lessons plans and our syllabus. I enjoyed how they included outlines and templates to help us see what is the "correct" way to do this. There is so much that goes into developing, creating, planning, and teaching a writing course.  I also found chapter 16 to be very important especially for todays age. I can't even begin to think how stressful and difficult it was for current teachers to fully transition to online courses. I feel like that requires even more work to a certain extent and makes the job quite harder. Despite it being and seeing quite difficult, I think I would also be interested in teaching an online class in the futur...

 The Bastian reading was one I found to be very interesting. Kind of piggybacking from last weeks readings and blog, we can see the topic of education always changing in the Bastian reading just like we saw that in Lindemann's Chapter 4.  Embracing innovation is one of the most important things an educator can do and it is necessary to have a successful learning environment. One of the topics that Bastian touches on about embracing innovation in the classroom and in traditional ways of teaching is the idea of creating a more inclusive space and model of academic writing. Inclusivity should be one of the reasons for innovation. A lot of these traditional structures and ways of teaching are not inclusive for all groups and types of students. Not only students, but genres as well. Many genres are not included and are excluded from the classroom realm. We can see that in our canon of novels that are taught. The readings rarely represent innovation or inclusivity in the literature ...

 Lindemann's chapter four was very interesting as it allowed me to learn about what "rhetoric" is in depth and the various "kinds" there are. Lindemann talks about Classical Rhetoric, Medieval and Renaissance Rhetoric, and Contemporary Rhetoric. I found it very useful to be able to learn about all these different types of rhetoric and the importance and context behind them. Rhetoric is something very important because it literally affects all aspects of our lives and ways of living. What was also noted that was very interesting is how we've seen and can still see how Rhetoric is constantly changing. It is always evolving and growing into something new. Its expansion contributes to various different types of practices. I also found it interesting how they mentioned that we should not remain "stuck" with a certain definition. As educators and scholars, we should question rhetoric and our practices so that we may be allowed to learn more, grow, and ex...

 “Defining the rhetorical situation requires assessing the writer’s relationship to the subject and the reader” (192).  For a writing assignment to be effective, it must account the students’ interest in and understanding of the subject, the purpose or aim of the composition, the audience, a role for the student to take with respect to the subject and audience, and the form of discourse (which needn’t always be an essay) (194). Teachers must vary the rhetorical situations to give students practice writing different modes for different audiences. This chapter addresses the idea of standardized testing with writing, emphasizing that multiple-choice tests on grammatical elements do not test writing skills. If a teacher wants to evaluate writing skills, the students must write. I like this because the student has to be interactive and interact with their writing. Many students aren't good test-takers and given they will be writing for the rest of their lives, one can assume it is ...

BLOG #11  Jeanne Nixt   The paper on writing assignments helped to put me at ease; there are others out there for whom creating a meaningful assignment truly aligned with both teaching techniques and student levels of ability and engagement, is tough.   It also gave me some guide posts, some directional signs and referred back, for me at least, to the article on templates we read. Using the writing assignment guidelines can function like templates – as a starting place, a way to learn patterns, to ‘chunk’ the material.   If you’re not from the linguistics side of things, ‘chunking’ means that when you learn a chunk of something, you can apply it to something else.   For example, “How are you?” can become “Where is John?”   The chunk being the simple question format.   We are chunking, in this paper, the ways to create good writing assignments – the simple and not so simple system needed.   The pyramid of student, teacher, audience was referenc...

 In chapter 13 of the Lindemann text, "Developing Writing Assignments", we are introduced to several variables that a writing teacher should take into account for when assigning a writing task, such as the student's interest/understanding of the subject, the aim of the assignment, the audience, criteria for success, etc.  It's also crucial that the writing teacher anticipate problems, use appropriate language to describe the task, and avoid confusing the students.   Reading this reminded me of my experiences as a writing tutor.  Sometimes students would bring me a description of their assignment to the appointment and tell me that they were confused by it.  Often times the confusion was the result of the student not understanding what the professor was asking for in the paper/essay.  So, I would read through the writing assignment with them and we would highlight important verbs, such as describe, analyze, compare, and reflect, and further discuss what...

On page 196, Warnock explains how he wants students to "present remotely from different sites" because it "was a good skill for them to practice." I don't know when he wrote those words, but the past year has proven them truer than ever. We thought society was reliant on Internet technology; then, society went into a shutdown due to a global pandemic and we really become dependent on online technology. We are still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, so it is too early to say how society — and education/academia — will permanently change due to the lessons we have learned since early 2020. That said, changes will be made, and a shift toward online presentations — for school and work — will increase. OWCs can teach students how to engage with material, follow directions from a teacher (a boss in the "real world"), and work with others, and all of these skills are applicable to the jobs students will have during their academic careers and after. One c...

There is a theme between pages 137 and 144 that resonate with me and that theme can be summarized with the "in the groove" statement on page 143 (hence the post title). That theme, specifically, details how students adjust to OWCs and create personal schedules to navigate the course. Page 137 mentions how it takes students six weeks to "finally" understand how to engage in an OWC, which is similar to my experience. The first few weeks of my online courses are intentionally slow and include low-stakes assignments (often worth five or 10 points at the most) to give students time to learn how to navigate the modules and how to create time for the class work. Page 138 explains the difference between "working from home" and "homework," and this slow build-up gives students the chance to learn the course material while learning the modules and how to be an online student. By the sixth week, that slow build has increased and at least one essay has been ...

                This week, I focused on the following points in the readings that I wanted to address:   1.) What I found useful in the Lancaster piece is how he discusses that students should be aware of the other  positions  others hold in a specific argument and to address these arguments when writing their position on a topic. I agree with him that giving students model phrases for addressing counterarguments such as “some readers may disagree”, although I grant that”, and so on, are useful for teaching students to engage with the positions of others on the topic and to refute these arguments to make their writing and argument stronger. I think it’s important to encourage students to not overly rely on these phrases but instead use them to get them confident enough in their writing to be able to craft their own phrases and writing voice to articulate well both the other sides of the topic and their own argument.   2.) I thi...