Discussion Post #1: Week 3
Prompt:
" A Few (nearly) Universal Truths About Teaching Writing:
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Please visit Module 3 and read Murray, Sommers, and one of the supplemental readings. Based on what you find there, as well as your own experiences as a student and as a UTA, please compose a 250-300 post that addresses a couple of those "universal truths" about teaching writing. In your post, be sure to reference all three authors--Murray, Sommers, and your choice from the supplements.
Please post by midnight on Sunday. Then, please return to this thread and respond to 1-2 other people to see how they are tackling these intractable issues, what they see that you hadn't thought of before, what's worked for them in the past that you could try with your students, etc. We'll continue this conversation in class." |
Response:
In my 101S class, I was amazed to read the introduction discussion posts and hear how many of the students hated writing. (One person actually wrote "I despise writing.") I knew that some students didn't enjoy writing, but I never thought of it as a "universal truth."
Now, I wonder if the reason so many students hate writing is because they have never been taught to write. In Galchen and Heller's "Can Writing be Taught?" article, Galchen states: "...in most every intellectual endeavor, the extremes of its work comes from an unteachable dark." I find that concept difficult to understand. Writing is so abstract and so subjective that I believe it is more difficult to teach than the concrete formulas found in STEM classes. Heller's response to the question posed in the title ends with: "Writing can be taught, but it deserves to be taught better than this." That line struck me because although she argues against the methods taught at her daughter's school, she does not propose a solution, which leaves us with this question: How should writing be taught?
Murray proposes that teachers emphasize writing as a process instead of a product. I found his writing enlightening. His argument to stop viewing student papers at literature and start viewing them as a step in an immersive process is one that I feel could be worth putting into practice.
Sommers critiques the most common methods that we, as editors and instructors, use to revise students' papers. I especially agree with her point that there is no "scale of concern" to weigh out which critiques are the most important. Every year a student gets a new teacher with a different preference, and after years of school, it can be infuriating to have to adjust the criteria for no other reason than to earn an A on the paper the students churned out without any heart.
Now, I wonder if the reason so many students hate writing is because they have never been taught to write. In Galchen and Heller's "Can Writing be Taught?" article, Galchen states: "...in most every intellectual endeavor, the extremes of its work comes from an unteachable dark." I find that concept difficult to understand. Writing is so abstract and so subjective that I believe it is more difficult to teach than the concrete formulas found in STEM classes. Heller's response to the question posed in the title ends with: "Writing can be taught, but it deserves to be taught better than this." That line struck me because although she argues against the methods taught at her daughter's school, she does not propose a solution, which leaves us with this question: How should writing be taught?
Murray proposes that teachers emphasize writing as a process instead of a product. I found his writing enlightening. His argument to stop viewing student papers at literature and start viewing them as a step in an immersive process is one that I feel could be worth putting into practice.
Sommers critiques the most common methods that we, as editors and instructors, use to revise students' papers. I especially agree with her point that there is no "scale of concern" to weigh out which critiques are the most important. Every year a student gets a new teacher with a different preference, and after years of school, it can be infuriating to have to adjust the criteria for no other reason than to earn an A on the paper the students churned out without any heart.
Reflection:
My English 101S class did an amazing job of incorporating revision and peer review while the students worked on their papers. We had several workshop days for each assignment, including the Inquiry Assignment, the Digital Forum, and the Final Position Paper. I believe that we did approach writing as a process, as Murray explained in his piece. Our students brought in their drafts for each project multiple times. This allowed them to revise their work at every step and prevented them from making critical errors in their arguments early on in the writing process. One of the things the class teaches to guide students' writing is "stasis theory." These four stases, fact and definition, consequence/ cause and effect, evaluation/ value, and action, give the students an overarching goal in their writing. I have noticed that once the stases were introduced, the students showed less signs of confusion and more signs of confident writing and reviewing.
Discussion Post #3: Week 5
Prompt:
Please read the two required readings and also read Classroom Structures which Encourage Student Participation (Links to an external site.)
Pick 1-2 methods of classroom structures and discuss how they can be applied to your classroom. How would you address the limitations? What practices discussed in Brookfield and Preskill would teachers need to avoid in order to keep the conversations balanced? What strategies seem most relevant?
Pick 1-2 methods of classroom structures and discuss how they can be applied to your classroom. How would you address the limitations? What practices discussed in Brookfield and Preskill would teachers need to avoid in order to keep the conversations balanced? What strategies seem most relevant?
Response:
In my English 101S class, just about every meeting is mostly consistent of the group discussion explained in the Cornell chart. As it mentions, this method is easily adaptable to almost any lesson plan and can encourage practical discussions within a large group. The group discussion does require pre-planning, which can limit off-topic discussion that could otherwise lead to a productive conversation if allowed.
Teachers using the group discussion would have to find a balance in how much to participate in a large group. If the teacher talks too little, there might not be enough guidance to encourage the discussion outlined in the plans. If the teacher talks too much, as is discussed in Brookfield & Preskill, they could discourage the students from adding their own insight because they feel their teacher underestimates their ability to think critically.
Group discussion is most commonly used in classroom settings. This strategy seems to be the most relevant because of this fact. When group discussion becomes difficult because of the number of students, buzz groups can save the discussion. Buzz groups are probably the second most common approach, and while I think they also have their advantages in the classroom, it is also easy for smaller groups without close supervision to lose track of their topic.
Teachers using the group discussion would have to find a balance in how much to participate in a large group. If the teacher talks too little, there might not be enough guidance to encourage the discussion outlined in the plans. If the teacher talks too much, as is discussed in Brookfield & Preskill, they could discourage the students from adding their own insight because they feel their teacher underestimates their ability to think critically.
Group discussion is most commonly used in classroom settings. This strategy seems to be the most relevant because of this fact. When group discussion becomes difficult because of the number of students, buzz groups can save the discussion. Buzz groups are probably the second most common approach, and while I think they also have their advantages in the classroom, it is also easy for smaller groups without close supervision to lose track of their topic.
Reflection:
When I wrote my first lesson plan, I made sure to use the information in these readings to guide my discussion. I pre-planned my lesson to include potential answers to questions just in case my students suddenly lost their voices all at once. I also made sure to watch the clock and tie any off-topic discussion back into the lesson in front of me. I think that I found a nice balance when I delivered my lesson. I never had a moment of silence from my students that could have thrown us off track. I did not feel the need to speak any more or less than what I outlined in my original lesson plan. We also used buzz groups pretty often throughout the semester. It proved to be a productive organization-- there were two instructors that could walk around the room and make sure each small group stayed on task.
Discussion Post #2: Week 6
Prompt:
"Students will float to the mark you set" (Rose 2).
"In problem-posing education, people develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation" (Freire 83).
“Any classroom that employs a holistic model of learning will also be a place where teachers grow and are empowered by the process. That empowerment cannot happen if we refuse to be vulnerable while encouraging students to take risks” (Hooks 21).
"Neither majority nor minority teachers will be able to choose among options freely until they have examined how their membership in either of those groups may have affected their thinking, especially in terms of what is normal, or right or good, for teachers, students and school" (Hinchey 25).
“If we regard truth as something handed down from authorities on high, the classroom will look like a dictatorship. If we regard truth as a fiction determined by personal whim, the classroom will look like anarchy. If we regard truth as emerging from a process of mutual inquiry, the classroom will look like a resourceful and interdependent community. Our assumptions about knowing can open up, or shut down, the capacity for connectedness of which good teaching depends” (Palmer 51-2).
Please read at least two of the five authors in the Week 6 module.
Discuss. :-)
"In problem-posing education, people develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation" (Freire 83).
“Any classroom that employs a holistic model of learning will also be a place where teachers grow and are empowered by the process. That empowerment cannot happen if we refuse to be vulnerable while encouraging students to take risks” (Hooks 21).
"Neither majority nor minority teachers will be able to choose among options freely until they have examined how their membership in either of those groups may have affected their thinking, especially in terms of what is normal, or right or good, for teachers, students and school" (Hinchey 25).
“If we regard truth as something handed down from authorities on high, the classroom will look like a dictatorship. If we regard truth as a fiction determined by personal whim, the classroom will look like anarchy. If we regard truth as emerging from a process of mutual inquiry, the classroom will look like a resourceful and interdependent community. Our assumptions about knowing can open up, or shut down, the capacity for connectedness of which good teaching depends” (Palmer 51-2).
Please read at least two of the five authors in the Week 6 module.
Discuss. :-)
Response:
I found the concepts in Rose's essay to be thought-provoking. "Students will float to the mark you set" is something I can reflect on and find mostly accurate. Students seem to go through a "testing" period, wherein they skip readings, skip class altogether, and stretch assignment requirements just to see how much they will be able to get away with for the remainder of the class. I have noticed a few of my students this semester testing these set marks. However, because I am working with 101S students, I do not have much experience with the kinds of students that are typically risen from vocational education classes. As Rose expressed, it is uncommon for these kinds of students to rise from the bottom of the education system to the peaks of optional schooling. Students testing limits are usually doing so in college to determine which classes are the hardest and which will require the most dedication.
Freire's criticism of the banking education technique is an excellent dissection of some of the problems students have coming up in traditional education settings. I feel that it is the education system's acknowledgment of these issues that has started to change the way teachers teach and students learn. I am unfamiliar with other departments, but as for English, classes are hardly lecture-based anymore. There is no assumption that "the teacher knows all and the students know nothing," because this assumption is simple and false. Discussion-based education gives students a chance to make their own contribution and ask their own questions about the work they're studying.
Freire's criticism of the banking education technique is an excellent dissection of some of the problems students have coming up in traditional education settings. I feel that it is the education system's acknowledgment of these issues that has started to change the way teachers teach and students learn. I am unfamiliar with other departments, but as for English, classes are hardly lecture-based anymore. There is no assumption that "the teacher knows all and the students know nothing," because this assumption is simple and false. Discussion-based education gives students a chance to make their own contribution and ask their own questions about the work they're studying.
Reflection:
I actually had a moment in our class recently that reminds me of this post. After the first six weeks, students started to slack off on their readings because they were not directly mentioned in class. It was apparent in the discussions which students were reading and which were not. The students fell into a routine that did not involve reading the material assigned to them. When Catherine organized a discussion that directly relied on the information in the previously assigned reading, the students found themselves at a loss. It completely damaged the lesson for the day. We could tell how guilty the students felt about their mistake (several even came up to us and apologized after class.) From then on, students seemed to do much better when their online classes asked them to read or take notes on an outside source.
I still believe that the English department is the exception to the banking method outlined in Freire's paper. The majority of our classes are taught in either a discussion format, group work format, or a question-answer format that encourages the students to share their knowledge with their peers. Everyone learns from each other. It's one of my favorite things about English classes; the small class size and workshop-oriented material makes for provocative, stimulating conversations among students and teachers alike.
I still believe that the English department is the exception to the banking method outlined in Freire's paper. The majority of our classes are taught in either a discussion format, group work format, or a question-answer format that encourages the students to share their knowledge with their peers. Everyone learns from each other. It's one of my favorite things about English classes; the small class size and workshop-oriented material makes for provocative, stimulating conversations among students and teachers alike.