Blog #9: Dominic Lopez

                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 think that something I found relatable in the Bastian piece is that she brings up that students often will feel confused, anxious, uncomfortable, and so on when asked to do writing assignments that are not typical academic writing or unconventional writing prompts. You would think that students would respond positively to not having to write formally all of the time, but the truth is that they are so conditioned to academic writing that it makes them more comfortable to stick with that rather than branch out with more impactful and experimental writing. I relate to this because I would rather write formally in an academic style because it is what I excel in and what I’m used to. I feel that trying something new with writing is to risk failing on an assignment if it doesn’t work well, which is how I think a lot of students feel as well. While it can be effective to have students try new styles of writing and new types of writing assignments to make their writing more effective and authentic, I think we have to cut them some slack if they don’t do well with it at first or are resistant to it at first. Guiding them through the process slowly with introducing these methods of writing and assuring them that they won’t be graded too harshly is something I can see being beneficial to getting students used to and motivated to want to do these types of writing assignments. Eventually, they will be able to do them as well as regular academic writing assignments. 

3.) I like that Bastian provides some ways for changing the negative ways students respond to having to do unconventional writing assignments and for incorporating these assignments into the classroom successfully. I think it would be valuable to have in-class discussions with students about how they feel about academic writing and these unconventional writing assignments and to respond accordingly to the student’s feelings and concerns. Then, teachers can do whatever is necessary to make them more comfortable with the assignments and to help them be more successful at them. Teachers should be teaching lessons that operate with unconventional and creative methods rather than strictly academic methods so that students can see the value in them and see that teachers use them too. Guiding them through these assignments is crucial with doing things like showing them examples of how to do these assignments and having them discuss these assignments with their peers because they will feel more confident in their ability to do these new types of assignments and will get used to what they are like. Teachers can allow students the freedom to choose the genre of the writing assignment they do and how they will do the assignment to make them more excited and comfortable about doing these types of assignments in the future.