The final week

I guess we're not blogging anymore, but recently I've been so strained with one term paper that I've hardly found time to find time for the Teaching Philosophy or the Thesis Prospectus.  In one regard, the process hasn't been easy especially in terms of research.  This stands especially for the latter project as I've been trying to get stuff from ILL.  They cancelled the primary book of my choice, but they issued me another one of the books I wanted to read.  It's some interesting stuff and I've told Ron how it could help him.  Basically I'm trying to convince that using a gothic novel syllabus can be both useful and helpful to comp. courses.  I'm not surprised by a lot of teacher's publishing articles about their own classroom experience.  I guess as a final farewell just remember: nothing is as it appears.  Good luck to everyone!

Teaching Philosophy

On the off-chance that this might help someone gather ideas for their Teaching Philosophy, I thought I'd post a selection of bullet points from my brainstorm:

-  understand writing as process

-  awareness of audience 

-  heavy writing approach

-  portfolios

-  being patient with students 

-  combination of reading and writing 

-  multi-media, multi-faceted approaches 

-  written and visual texts

-  explore other “texts” than typical written ones

-  multiple literacies

-  various genres, audiences, and purposes

-  relate literature to other art forms such as painting & film

-  goal to have students move beyond the classroom and think about the world they exist in

-  students should write every day

-  class discussions are also important 

-  strong rhetorical skills 

-  apply writing skills to any situation, any style of writing

-  discuss the various pedagogies and allow students to pick and choose

-  show interaction between literary culture and society as a whole

-  argumentative theory, critical essays, and student essays

-  read about and debate current articles to address controversial topics, analyze opponent’s argument, and defend their position

-  writing, revising, rewriting

-  analyze peer’s essays to identify rhetorical structures and logical fallacies

-  teach studnets to become better readers of their own work

-  get students to develop different ideas and new points of view

-  group workshops so students know, teach & help each other

I'm looking to bolster up the section on practical assignments and ways to analyze the effectiveness of our teaching. Anyone have ideas? (Got a few good ones from Gina already -- Thanks Gina!)

I'd like to make the argument that Living Inside the Bible (Belt) is both limited and expansive. Carter makes several references on connecting with the students on some kind of Christian empathy but comparatively, I'd like to make the point that these students sound like any faith based student/individual/person I've met. And like Gina points out, Academia is a clash of faiths. My argument though is that everyone has a faith in something. And I am not speaking spirituality or religiously. Just faith. Faith in thy self, faith in money, economic Marxism, socialism, the good of people, the bad within the system, that the world is against them, that they're capable of anything, that school is the answer, that school is not the answer...and so and so forth...
And in such, many a time there is a resistance when these individuals hit academia which (due to poor teaching strategies and a broken academic system) requires that they surrender their general life-styles to worship among books and a voice that they're not accustomed to. The only difference in this scenario is that the Christian Bible holds a rules of etiquette for society that are both strict in their adherence and of such varying opinions that they're bound to clash with academia at some point of time. In any event and any variation of faith, rhetorical dexterity is the key. Connect, validate, let a person have a voice and then the skills that you need to teach them can be taught.
(P.S. Go see The Avengers. If you've already seen it, see it again.)

I’ve been caught up reading the research related to students and writing motivation.  I’d though I’d share some of what I’ve read in Gray A. Troia and Rebecca K. Shankland’s research article “Motivation Research in Writing: Theoretical and Empirical Considerations”.    They basically review the research that has been done on motivation when it comes to writing.   Self-efficacy beliefs (perceived competence), mastery and performance goal orientations, task interest and value, and attribution for success and failure are all summarized in this article.  

What they found is that motivated students usually know how to employ coping and learning strategies.  A student who knows how to cope, learns from his/her mistakes and works around those mistakes in order to achieve the desired goal.  They know how to encourage themselves and to seek assistance when needed without the fear of being perceived as incompetent.  

Obviously, on the other hand, students who lack motivation usually don’t use these kinds of strategies.  These students have low self-efficacy and will often to resort to several non-productive behaviors such as avoiding any assistance as requesting help will reveal his/her incompetence.  Low self-efficacy may even result in “learned helplessness” as well as negative emotional states such as anxiety and depression.  I’ve seen these traits a number of time in un-motivated writers as the Success Center.  

However students who possess high self-efficacy (overconfidence) can fall in a habit of disregarding those strategies.   I guess you can sort of connect this to the one-drafters but that doesn’t mean they’re not motivated to write.  They just have a different way of approaching the writing task.  Research has also suggested that writing skills largely play a big role in influencing how well a student accomplishes a task which of course contributes to a student’s writing motivation.  

The researchers suggest that 

1)students have opportunities to perform challenging tasks which they can be successful through sufficient scaffolding.  

2)Coping tactics should be modeled while faced with difficulty in completing a task. 

3)Feedback is (realistic, specific, and truthful) is very important

4)belief that competence is alterable through the expenditure of effort must be fostered

5)continued need for significant effort may signal low levels of ability and may negatively affect self-efficacy must always be recognized  

There are loads more of information about what research is being done what type of research should be done in the domain of writing motivation.  The rest is for my prospectus. 

Trying to Catch Up!

I need to catch up on the blogging, so I apologize if what I am saying seems redundant. UGH! See you tonight. Gina

This is in response to: Living Inside the Bible (Belt) By Shannon Carter

The article regarding religious beliefs and college curriculum is an interesting one on a personal level. When I was writing the thesis for my MA, I wanted to really delve into the idea that the confessional poet, Anne Sexton, did indeed use her poetry as a means to unburden her soul. Unlike most Bostonians of her era, she chose to sort of let go of the strict traditional  roles of society and by doing so opened herself up to the kind of self-reflection that at times, bordered on narcissism. All that to say this: when I proposed this idea to my committee, when I said that I wanted to involve the Catholic church, combine the thoughts of  priests and poets in my research, along with empirical evidence from Sexton’s own life- I was told that all of that was fine, as long as I took out the religious aspect of it. I could not build on the obvious. Anne Sexton was indeed a ‘confessor’ but  I could not research that term in the most traditional of ways.

I am a Christian, I struggle with that when, in  my academic experiences, I run across something that challenges those beliefs, but I don’t feel the need to abandon one for the other. Similarly, I don’t feel the need to ‘share’ or try to ‘reach’ those who do not feel that same way I do. That said, by faith, I’m a Catholic,  I married a Catholic, our children have both made all the sacraments that they are supposed to have made at this point in their life, and yet, I really try to explain to them that not everyone is going to believe in  the same things that we do.  I tell them to  live their faith, but allow others to live theirs as well.

   

Academia is one of those other ‘faiths.’ Like it or not, academia is a religion. It has a hierarchy, a dogma , strict moral compass, and even its own rites and rituals. Not to mention a pretty standard course of study one needs to follow in order to enter into the fold, so to speak.  And let’s not forget that, in both, one can be excommunicated for the most egregious of sins. So fundamentally, what I think the authors of this article are trying to convey is that people should try to be more balanced when approaching either academia or religion. People don’t like to feel as though they are not being validated. People don't like feeling as though something they have spend such a large amount of their time on, is fruitless. Pointless. A sham!  At its worst, academia and organized religion are both pretty exclusive and narrow in scope. It is the true academic and person of faith that can take the best of these worlds to fashion a more  ‘humanistic’ stance both in their writing, and in their approach to both schools of thought. 

Gina Bove

Chapter 7

Its interesting to know that there is a constant debate about bilingual education in North America, due Spanish speaking enrollment. Also,  that the majority of the states affected by spanish speaking enrollment , are California, Arizona, Texas, and Massachusetts.  Over the course of time Education has changed to ensure bilingual students get the best education. Although, educators are trying to provide Spanish speaking students with the best education they have not found the best solution. There has been a constant battle. Some districts have come up with the immersion program, which students are put into classes where they learn Spanish and English. I don't agree with immersion because it's impossible for a teacher to give their full attention to both languages. It's in possible to fully teach both languages in one setting.  I think that both English and Bilingual education should be divided. A school day should consist of learning in two languages along with other core requirements. Personally I don't think it's fair that bilingual students benefit from learning English or French or other native languages, when students who speak their countries native language aren't fully taught other languages. When I was in high school I only learned two years of Spanish. I thinks I should have learned Spanish in grade school as well.  However I do agree with bilingual students receiving the best education possible. Educators are going to have to figure properly figure out the best solution. Without a proper solution, students are going continue struggling. 

Like, you're totally a racist!

Jennifer Trainor's article is a pretty simple study.  She went to Laurel Canyons high school, which is 97% middle-class white kids.  However, throughout this essay, she tries to at least give them the benefit of the doubt about their wealth.  One family lives in a mobile home, while others live in a pretty educated home.  There's a lot of trash talk in this article especially from students who are not racist, but very hegemonic about class status.  In a less-confusing Marxist terms it means that they are not racist by race, but rather knock down lower-class people.  This includes all "white trash" and colored people.
Trainor argues that racism in the class room is therefore not as clear-cut as we might imagine.  She also argues in very Althusserian terms that ideologies both racist (and even anti-racist) organizations cause racial problems.  The one example that really stuck with me from the beginning was the Miya Angeluo responses.  Some seem to say that she's making an excuse for people not to be individuals who have responsibilities etc. etc.  Of course, many students, Trainor implies, are influenced by their parents and families treatment towards race.  One example comes to mind from a girl who tells her parents that her uncle keeps using the "N- word" so much and even from an early age she felt as if it were a bad word.  What we must remember is that students can often change a story or flat out just tell us b.s. as long as it makes them shine.  Now, I'm not saying she could've known that the word had bad connotations, but it seems pretty odd they she gives that argument.
Finally, I'd like to say that Trainor's essay isn't as helpful as we might want it to be.  She comes from a similar background that these students do and her experience with race is limited therefore.  When Trainor encounters it as a teacher, she seems to react.  This is a good example perhaps of how people who have felt apart of a culture, suddenly realize their otherness.  However, this may be more helpful than we might imagine.  Maybe people can become more aware, more conscious about their social identities and that the ideologies behind them can affect the way we think about racism in general.  This is perhaps the best thing we can take away from this essay.  What is not as helpful, which my sound derogatory is that this essay focuses on a specific white-centered group of students.  Statistically it's not the best nor is it the best way to look at just one group of people.
On a final note, I'd just like to ask: how many times do the students use the word "like" in this essay?

The problems ESL students face

Ortmeier does a great job at breaking down the typical problems ESL students generally face when entering Composition classes at Universities. When ESL students first enter college the face many challenges in writing. Beginning level composition course are challenging, and many instructors are not willing to bend the rules for ESL students. I guess it wouldn't be fair for instructors to overlook one students mistakes because English isn't  their first language. Throughout essay Ortmeier makes the connection between student identity and student writing. Many second language learners are eager to break the use of their first language, because they don't want to be identified as ESL students, because being labeled as an ESL is often problematic. It saddens me to know that ESL students also struggle in their home lives as well. I think this is something instructors should take into consideration. In order to educate the student, we have to understand the student. If students are struggle with their identities at home and in school, learning to speak another language want be any easier. Educators need to take this into consideration.

ESL Hooper

  For the most part, I would agree that the ESL label does play strong part in many ESL student’s identities and writing motivation in classrooms.  To be labeled “ESL”, or something other than “Standard English”, carries a social stigma in schools and in colleges.   Many ESL students I tutor tend to assume that there is a kind of hierarchy of the English language at the Success Center.  They, especially first time ESL students tend to view themselves as the bottom of the barrel and have a very negative self-image  of themselves as writers and even as students.  The students that, I guess,  acknowledge that their “place” seem to be more docile, although still resentful of the lave, but willing to learn more to move up out of that “place” much like Misha.  I’ve met students like Misha who take pride in their progress and work.  Some of these students even come back and update my co-workers and I on their progress in English or some side projects they’ve been working on.  

Then there are, however, students like Sergej who absolutely feel patronized and belittled by ESL.   When I started tutoring ESL students, I would always try to make them feel comfortable by pointing out what they were doing right and what looks interesting in their essay assignments.  However, sometimes I would come across students who were very distant and felt that I was patronizing them rather than encouraging them.  You can kind of get sense of the student’s personality as you go over the essay with him/her by how they react to your questions or through their participation in the tutorial session.  But I can understand why some ESL students become very indifferent.  I think some comments from instructors like “Thanks for sharing this” can be superfluous to ESL students like Sergej.  They just know because it’s like the the instructor has an opportunity to sit with every one of his/her students and converse.  

To avoid being patronizing, as a tutor, I try to initiate small conversations with the ESL student.  Most of the time, their stories are very compelling.  Most of the time, they respond to me with great detail because, I think, I am genuinely interested in what they have to say or write.  If I come across a student like Jane, who has a great of being marginalized for not being a "regular" student, I would always remind him/her that he/she is a regular student who is just learning another language.   

Hooper's ESL students

Since many of my students are categorized as ESL, I can relate to this essay. I often see very little difference in the students that are classified as ESL vs ELL. I was also intrigued by the lack of research on the success, or lack there of, of ELL students once they reach college. I almost considered (and may still) changing my research topic to this.  Many of the students may be embarrassed to be a part of this program; however, just like Sergej in the study"Although he did not wish to be classified as an 'ESL' student, he did identify himself as such to his composition instructor because he believed that it would give him 'more privileges,' and that, in general, teachers would be more forgiving of certain errors in his writing and his speech." (Hooper 397) I notice this same behavior in many of my students. They don't want the extra help publicly; in fact, many resent the resource teachers helping them in the classroom. When it comes to an essay being due, however, they will always let it be known that they are ELL or ESL students, and because of that, they are allowed more time to finish their essay. A lot of students that are in that program feel that they don't belong, but their writing tells a different story. Many of these students have parents that only speak Spanish at home, and are not able to benefit from getting that source of extra help. Unfortunately, these same students don't take advantage of the resources they have at school either. Now, with budget cuts in LAUSD, even those sources are more limited. The plight of the ESL students is only becoming more challenging.

Hooker's Myth of the ESL student

In this essay, Chiristina-Hooker looks at three "ESL" students: Sergej from Poland, Misha from Russia, and Jane from Hong Kong.  It's not surprising that Sergej and Misha have differing thoughts on their education.  Sergej comes from a place of war in Serbia whereas Misha comes from a less (at least now) oppressive environment.  Hooker goes on for many pages talking especially to the former of the two because she notices that as a student he often writes or implies at isolation and otherness.  With the label "ESL" student he feels more isolated from the rest of the community and having to live in a New England ghetto hints at a previous reading of the boy Arturo makes fun of.  Sergej, therefore, is a strong supporter for her argument that the "ESL" and "ELL" and "1.5 generation" are often harmful to a student's identity rather than not.  Hooker also goes into a great deal about how a student "performs" their speech and writing where Sergej knows that even if he doesn't want to do the assignment or believe it what he says, he will lie anyways because his grades are on the line.
This is a good transition I think for Misha provides the opposition side giving a much brighter perspective on the ESL situation.  Misha is far more willing than Sergej tends to be in terms of doing the assignment and finds enrichment in the writing activities.  To me, I thought Misha was playing his role as the "good student," the one who pretends that he wants to learn so that he not only impresses his teacher, but those around him.  Though in some cases it may be genuine, Misha's attitude for the class appears to me at least a little made up.  However, his positive writing experience (unlike Sergej who hates to revise because he thinks it's non-sense) also stems from his good grade on the literacy autobiography.
I would now like to take a moment's reflection before into Jane's discussion with Hooker, which is basically the weigh-in on Misha because her experience coincides with Sergej.  But for a moment: I would like to briefly mention one ESL student I remember tutoring vs. an ELL student who was more like a 1.5 student.  The first, In Noh, was a Korean native and had never really learned English until later in his life.  When he first attended SMC (where it was my first time tutoring) he came to me for help.  He was not in an ESL course (even though they have an entire department) because he was stuck or rather put into English 1 by assessment.  His writing struggled in terms of grammar and other things ESPECIALLY the missing of a/an/the (all articles), which to me was a bit frustrating.  However, he quickly got over those problems as was able to pull off an A without hardly any help from me.  I heard from him later that he was having success by himself in English 2.  What is my point?  He was like Misha, someone who benefited from NOT being labeled an ESL student.
Another friend of mine, Jose, is currently a B.A. student at CSUDH.  He is a lot more like Jane (who I promise to discuss in a second) who did not enjoy the ESL label and is still to this day quite adamant about retaining his Mexican identity, but not without also being American.  He has an AMERICAN passport, and even though he struggled, he learned English.  In other words, he does not want the ESL identity because he feels isolated from the American identity he wishes to share.
And with that, let's move into Jane who has a complete fear of being called an ESL student.  It makes her feel like she's somehow different and so, like Jose, she either omits or does not wish to be known as the person who knows a second language.  I think for Jose (who was born in America, but raised back and forth in Mexico) learned Spanish and English; and for Jane who's a Hong Kong native implies that she was learning Cantonese at home, while also learning Madarin in school + English.  Indeed, the point is that both students learn English virtually simultaneously.  This means that they literally learned multiple first-languages at the same time.  Even though Jose seems to have English after Spanish, he's probably referring to his mastery or competency in the language.  So Hooker's study does make some good parallels, while ultimately suggesting that although we shouldn't change the ESL and ELL and 1.5 generations terms, we should always be aware of the different types of students attitudes towards being labeled something just as much as we are aware of their cultural diversity in the classroom.

Rose on Cognitive Reductionism:

Rose’s essay is primarily concerned with explaining the remedial differences between good and bad writers. The piece opens with an explanation of Cognitive style and how it relates to an individual’s ability to solve problems. The assertion is that each of us uses our critical thinking abilities in different ways, and not surprisingly, these differences lie between a spectrum of cognitive differences. The results of his first test clearly show the students with more independent cognitive skills tend to be better or more efficient problem solvers. The papers written by those who are field-independent vs. those who are field-dependent tend to be the more fully realized textual efforts. This was a surprise to Rose, but seemed like common sense to me. Writing is a very independent activity, maybe one of the most independent activities an individual can engage in. The activity is by its very nature one of solitude. A person with good independent cognitive skills should be well suited to writing and the quality of the writing should theoretically stand in opposition to the quality of writing by a person with a more dependent style of cognitive problem solving ability. His discussion of the idea of hemisphericity is a little more problematic in that he begins the section by noting that the results of the tests are occasionally at odds with each other and the conflicting results are “disturbing and the literature is filled with methodological  quarrels, competing  theories,  and  conceptual tangles.” (Rose) The results are that individuals tend to rely more on one side of their brain than the other when dealing with cognitive problem solving and thus the term: hemisphericity. This is interesting stuff, but hardly ground breaking research. That human beings handle problem solving with differences in their cognitive approach seems more like common sense to me. Sam Harris discusses some of these points in his book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. Ultimately, Rose leaves us with this summation of his essay’s central thesis; “Human cognition-even at its most stymied, bungled moments-is rich and varied. It is against this assumption that we should test our theories and research methods and classroom assessments.” (Rose) How we as teachers approach these varied cognitive skills when assessing and teaching writing? With so many factors like cultural and genetic differences at work, there can be no simple solution. I feel like the essay comes full circle and leaves us where we started. Maybe better informed about cognitive dissonance, but still lacking a pedagogy which encompasses the full spectrum

Rose: Remedial Writers and Cognitive Reductionism

Attempting to describe and explain the cognitive differences between those who write well and those who write poorly using "studies of cognitive style," "popular articles on brain research," "Piaget's work on the development of logical thought," or the work of "orality-literacy theorists," can only produce, according to Mike Rose, naive generalities and hopelessly reductive conclusions (267). Rose seems to be right in this recognition: cognitive reductionism mistakenly presumes that "unsuccessful writers think in fundamentally different ways from successful writers" (267). Clearly there are more factors at work than simple cognition - cultural, societal, etc. The question becomes, "How do we go about judging the thought processes involved with reading and writing when performance is problematic, ineffective, or stunted?" (297).  If it is even possible, we must first recognize, as Rose does, that "human cognition... is rich and varied" (297). There is a complex spectrum of people who possess the same abilities to both think and write, but do so in different ways.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 has really made me contemplate the realistic issues with bilingual education. I for one am a proponent of bilingual education but Williams brings up a good issue with areas that contains students from dozens upon dozens of different backgrounds with different languages. In order to effectively create programs with bilingual education then you would in theory need teachers that spoke (or understood the basis of) a variety of all the different languages of their students. In theory it works well but in reality its dang near impossible.
But in any event I come to question when it is the most appropriate time and balance to emphasize standard English and an individuals own unique vernacular. I do not plan on being an elementary or middle school teacher, so this question is more of a curiosity - but how do you balance both standard English and cultural vernacular (and code-switching) when the students are very young. I find that teaching and tutoring non mainstream students in high-school and higher education institution is easier as they can be reasoned with and can be taught the important usages of all vernaculars; but how do you try to teach an eight year old that speaks mostly Spanish at home without damaging their well being...

Grading

Now that I have read chapter 10 for a second time, I feel more confident when grading. Prior to reading chapter I0, I hated grading essays. For me grading an essay was equivalent to having a wisdom teeth pulled. That's how bad it was.  Throughout the chapter, Williams gives clear instructions on what exactly you should look for when grading papers. Instead of spending hours reading three essays, Williams says that it's best to separate the essays into piles. The A pile, B pile, C pile and D pile. I did not mention and F pile, because I don't believe in giving students F's on essays. The lowest grade I would give is a D-.  Giving a student an F on a completed assignment is a slap in the face. The only assertion chapter 10 was missing is how to give positive feedback. Overall, Williams did a great job!

CH7 WIlliams

       Chapter 7 provides a lot of background information on ESL students, bilingual education, dialects and Black Vernacular which I found insightful.  I tutor many ESL students at Cerritos College.  Technically, I am just a “Standard” English Writing tutor, but fortunately I am being cross-trained to become an ESL and Reading tutor as well.   I need the training anyway and this chapter has definitely helped understand the issues and research in bilingual education and ESL learners.  

  One part of the chapter that really interested me was the section on Home language.  “Parents who differentiate between lie and lay will typically discover that their children do not if the people in the neighborhood do not” (Williams 227).  This is true in my case.  I was born in Los Angeles and when I was about two years old, with my twin brother, I was raised by my aunt in the Philippines.  When we were six years old we returned to California.  We didn’t know how to speak or understand English during Kindergarten, but we learned how to speak and understand  it gradually.  By 1st grade we were almost fluent in English though we had the Filipino accent and we were sent to some ESL classes for a few months.   Years in elementary pass and suddenly we’ve become “Americanized” as my parents called it.  WE spoke and wrote in better English than they did although they’ve been U.S citizens for 15 years.  My parents speak tagalog at home and are now fluent in English but you would still be able to hear the accent.  

On other hand, though my brother and I can still understand tagalog, we can’t speak tagalog without having a ridiculous English accent.   “After about age 5, the community exerts more influence on the shape of the child’s language that the parents do” (Williams 227).  I guess this is part of the assimilation that Williams and other researchers were talking about in this chapter.  

Home Language is supposedly resistant to change, but I guess for younger children it isn’t.  English would become their home language after so many years of being immersed in it.  I find many ESL adult students being resistant sometimes.   It’s understandable.  I know learning a new language as an adult can be extremely frustrating.  I took two years of French in high school and I found myself resisting that language because it was a little too difficult for me...at that time.    

The "Symbolic Capital" of Literacy

Jessica Zacher's idea within her dissertation essentially flushes out a year-long study (though she consistently reminds us that she has known most of the students for 5 years) about social hierarchy in Ms. Linda's 5th grade classroom.  Her article addresses a major point that resonates with Lad Tobin's article about Tom and the "Baseball Caps..." etc.  Zacher, herself, as well as Ms. Linda and several kids in this classroom have a previous attachment to this event.  This, of course, allows her a more personalized and inside look at years of progress in the students' lives.  She first starts off the essay almost solely focusing on Marcus although the middle of her essay is dedicated quite a bit to DeAndre, which shifts once the actual stories play a role with her evidence where Arturo becomes her primary subject.  Arturo fits the role as the Neitzschean tarantula who traps Marcus with his story "The Stolen Shoes."  Of course, just like any Neitzschean hero should, Marcus goes up to the classroom to defend himself and become the "superman" who saves his reputation.  Yet Ms. Linda never allows Marcus his potential and threatens him to seat down.  Zacher notices the obvious difference between her tone with an exasperated Marcus vs. her easier tone with a hubristic DeAndre who politely sits down.  Zacher repeats a lot of what happens to Marcus and the alpha-maleness of DeAndre, while also bringing in the middle man Arturo.  The one who is far-less mentioned (and almost invisible) is John, the guy who beats up Arturo following Marcus' command.
This essay is, in short, about "symbolic capital," which is a fancy Marxist way of saying: how students market themselves and one another.  Their social relationships determine a lot and their economic standing not only at home, but as the "richest with friends" AKA DeAndre are the most successful.  Zacher says her main subject authors are Bourdeau and Bahktin.  Even though this may be the case she often uses them sparingly, which make me wonder why she even mentions them?  I mean a lot of "representation" and other mimetic concepts can simply be found in Marx as well.
I found one more argument, which appears near the end of the piece where Zacher believes that the students probably use social hierarchies unintentionally.  I would disagree on that point and that especially the "gifted" student like DeAndre or the story-telling guru Arturo that they indeed know exactly what they are doing, that social struggle and class struggle are conscious in their minds.  Even though she seems to think their minds are not capable of going that far, she seems to think that what they read becomes a part of what they write themselves.  This, I am far more not inclined to agree.  I mean, the story is a story, and Arturo just explained the story as it happened; in other words she over reads some issues and undermines other problems.

Flower/Haas

I thought this essay provided good food for thought. At its heart is the experiment Flower and Hass conducted with readers from across the spectrum -- experienced, doctorate students to college freshman. While reading a dense piece of writing, the subjects were asked what they were thinking at various points during their reading. The results showed that all of the readers’ (both advanced and novice) responses focused on content strategies. Many of the readers were unable to move past this strategy to create a deeper understanding of the text and the rhetorical situation that surrounds it. All levels of readers used function/feature strategies, but the readers that did use them used them to a much lesser extent than they used content strategies. Function/feature strategies focus on what the text is doing and offer a bit more insight into the rhetorical nature of the text.The final strategy noted by Haas and Flower’s, rhetorical strategy, is concerned with “constructing a rhetorical situation for the text, trying to account for the author’s purpose, context, and effect on the audience." Even though very few readers achieved this level of analysis, only the experienced readers exhibited these strategies in their reading responses. Tough stuff, but important to be aware of as teachers. With guided practice, we hope our students will learn how to identify an author’s purpose and write with their own purpose, identify an author’s audience and address the needs of different audiences and rhetorical situations in their own writing, etc.

Teaching Philosophy Brainstorm

I included some variation of the three major goals discussed in class Monday night: flexibility, rhetorical awareness and fluency. I believe these characteristics are key to the development self-reliant, self-governed writers. Additionally, I want to expose my students to new cultures and ideas. The hope is, here, that they can critically examine their values, empathize with others of different backgrounds, and appreciate a common bond of humanity while retaining and valuing distinguished and separate identities. Lastly, I hope students leave my classroom feeling like they are "real" writers.

Grammarama

When I taught LA at the junior high level, I created SO many little mnemonic devices to help the students remember the parts of speech, sub/pred, and so on . . and on. THEN, after all of that when they went to the 8th grade, they did not remember a blessed thing! Of course my department head was the eighth grade teacher, and the looks she'd send my way. . .  Anyway, I finally started leaving my door open, so she'd hear what and how I was teaching, in an effort to cover my ass. UGH!

My point is, I think that people learn more about syntax and the positioning of phrases, by reading- NOT by being overwhelmed with sentence diagramming. While worksheets, and what Dr. Cauthen calls "skill and drill," has its place in teaching, it isn't very useful. It creates students who can complete worksheets. If one is teaching writing, one must have many, many opportunities for their students to write.  I know for instance, that I learn best by repetition and trial and error. That said, when I am teaching a grammatical skill, say appositives, or sub/verb agreement, I don't focus on other things. This doesn't mean that I won't mark down for things like end marks or caps at the beginning of a sentences, but by and large, I tend to focus on what we have been studying over the last few lessons or so.

I also learned that ANY writing assignment was up for grabs, as well. A journal prompt, a project for social studies class . . .etc.

I have assigned an essay, in my current class, that is due in two weeks and I have told them that I will be available if they want me to give their draft a once over. I have always afforded my students that opportunity, because frankly, what would the point of evaluating their writing, if they aren't given the chance to 'fix' it?

My feeling is, if a student is given the opportunity to practice a skill in a practical setting, that makes sense. To conjure up worksheets that just present sentences, that are artificial at best, seems counterproductive. For the most part, we learn by doing. We learn by having someone who is better than us, share the tricks of trade, not by making the task at hand seem so forced and foreign, that a person's own language, becomes alien to them. A student shouldn't have to search to find their voice every semester, hidden from them in a miasma of rules that asserts the notion that it is not what they have to say, that is meaningful, but how they say it.

Jessica Zacher Puts It All Together

This is ostensibly, an essay on hierarchal power and struggle for social acceptance within the confines of a classroom and examined by way of a literacy project undertaken by four males in a fifth grade classroom. This small size of the test group was the first thing that struck me, but I was open to the methodology used and whatever results Zacher comes up with must be analyzed accordingly. Zacher admits up front that there is valuable information missing from her understanding of social structure within the classroom: “We are missing a valuable piece of the puzzle about children, identity, and literacy: broadly speaking, how children may use literacy in the service of furthering their own social needs, at the expense of others in their space.” (Zacher) In her essay, Zacher notes that the students were using the reading of their stories to exert and or acquire power within the classroom and within the hierarchal structure of their group friendship. This may be so, although it also comes off as simple classroom brinkmanship or “one upping” each other as part of the ribbing which goes on between friends. I am not sure this should be construed as anything other than kids goofing off for attention, but the social economic and racial aspects of the event and its relation to literacy should not necessarily be ignored. I just don’t think this was an example of the social order being contested through the use of literacy. More like boys being boys. Maybe I am missing something. Her conclusions, having been drawn from such a small test group, are interesting but suspect.  “This analysis shows that ideologies and capital are somewhat fluid in children's worlds; because of this potential for change, it is critical to see children's texts as both sites of identity and ideology production and as reflections of existing ideologies and capital.” (Zacher) Well yeah, but so what else is new? Kids, and especially boys are prone to struggle for power and ideologies can be adjusted in that pursuit. I think Jessica is overthinking her thesis and basing in on an ineffective study. This whole idea of a student wielding symbolic capitol sounds interesting, but aren’t we just talking about gender and inter-gender specific dynamics which are already pretty well understood? Every student has a right to be heard. Some voices will most likely be louder than others.

Zacher

This is a very interesting study on children’s social positioning in literary events.  Zacher bases her study on DeAndre, Arturo, John and Marcus, students who have known each other since kindergarten and have established some kind social hierarchy within their friendships with each other.   DeAndre is the most popular kid because of the symbolic and cultural capital.  Arturo and John are a part of DeAndre’s group and thus also hold symbolic capital.  Marcus, despite being friends with the boys, is the lowest ranking member of the group’s hierarchy.  This may be in-part due to his lack of economic capital (Zacher has observed him using a string and ribbons as a makeshift belt for his pants).

Arturo basically writes two stories about unnamed boys.  The first one was about a kid who broke a window and got “whooping” for punishment.  The second story was about a shoe thief who was also punished, but this time by the victim of the theft.  What is interesting is that Arturo, instead of using pseudonyms, uses his friend’s names in the stories when he reads them to the class.   

In his first story, Arturo named the kid who broke the window John.  John’s friend is “Shorty” whom everyone knows as DeAndre (However, only DeAndre’s friends are allowed to call him Shorty).  In this story, John who is also Arturo’s friend and equal is the boy that gets the whooping.  Arturo makes sure to mention Shorty because he knows that in doing so, he can confirm to and remind everyone about his association with DeAndre.  

Before Arturo’s reads his second story, Marcus read his.  His is called “My Story” and is about a boy who seems to have an economically stable and loving family.  Ironically, according to Zacher, Marcus just paints himself as this boy because in reality his living situation is far from what he describes in his story.   

Arturo senses this and proceeds to insert Marcus as the shoe thief in his next story and DeAndre as the victim although the characters were nameless in his written text to begin with.  This reading puts Marcus back in his “place” and solidifies DeAndre’s standing and Arturo’s standing with DeAndre’s group.

In retaliation and in an attempt to change his “status” he races to the front of the room before DeAndre can present, and says “I got story. John beat up Arturo and gave him two black eyes and a bloody nose”.  

The boys used this literacy event as a tool to promote or, in Marcus’s case, to change their social status.  I’m willing to bet that most of us have been in this kind of competition over status with our friends during childhood...and if not childhood, in adulthood.   I remember a similar scenario happening to kids when I was in third grade class and then happening to another group of kids when I was in seventh grade.  

  Zacher ends her analysis by concluding that the teacher become more aware of situations like this.  By becoming aware, the teacher has an opportunity to productively have students access and analyze their own class or social identities.  This would certainly be a form of multicultural education and could possibly produce a better understanding of social identities.  I really think that this is both plausible and beneficial.

Flower Haas Close Reading of Reader-Response

Their claim is this article ends up being that student readers need to use rhetorical skills, or in more literary terms, make allusions between texts while also paraphrasing.  It is often to the crux of many students especially in the high school and community college level that they often repeat or regurgitate information.  It's kind of degradation to the max as Bakhtin might smirkingly say.  And I knew from the very beginning what she was talking about for these students often come asking for help on a 3-5 page essay.  When I tell them what an analysis is or how to go about it, I often find that they had no clue what analysis was in the first place.  I think the expectations of Flower-Haas is a bit over-reaching trying to compare graduate students to freshman college students.  Even the "above-average" student usually doesn't come close to the graduate student.  Of course, the text that they choose is something that hardly any of them know (3 of the experienced readers are engineers), which was from a psychology textbook.  I think even still it's a bit unfair due to age difference and the knowledge shared.  What would be interesting would be to get an average senior writer in the major vs. an experience reader in the engineering field.  One who knew the allusions, one who didn't and how THAT compared.
The gap between them also resulted in pretty lop-sided statistics.  Of course, what the test shows is that freshman comp. students are unable to (and she suggests that cognitively they are not ready enough) rhetorical practices like grad students.  If they did, Flower and Haas imagine that students would be far more able in a class to benefit from reading texts.
All of the students seemed able to produce the main content of the essay, but the implied meanings resonate far more so with grad students.  This is indeed, at least to me, not surprising especially if these students have taken a class on criticism or if they've experienced the horrors of the GRE.  Grad students are pushed much harder to identify knowledge and put things together than Freshman students are and I think that's just enough.  For how can you make a Freshman comp. class understand the emotions of an event if they are completely ignorant of it?
Although the results show what could possibly benefit students, I think the disparity between the level of expectation and the knowledge of students is an important factor to consider.  I can at least agree with Flower and Haas that reading should be taught more than just looking for content information.  It should teach students that we should use the information to provide evidence for how we feel on a topic rather than just blurting out things at random as we too often do.

Constructive Reading

Haas and Flower seem to have students reading  process figured out quite well. Throughout, the article both explain the two different reading processes "constructive"and "receptive". After reading the article I realized what category  I fell under Often when reading, I find myself reading aloud and applying some of my worldly experiences to make sense of the text. When Haas and Flower explained that people construct their interpretations of text differently, I couldn't have have agreed more. When I read Frankenstein for the first time, I didn't think of Victor as a scientist, but my classmates did. It's funny because most teachers don't like for students to have different interpretations of the text, but teach constructive reading styles.  Instead of teaching to the reader, they often teach to the text. For the most part I'm in agreement with Haas and Flower when it comes to the problems students have with constructive, but I don't agree with  them when they say that critical reading is more than reading carefully. Throughout grade school students are trained to read carefully not critically! When I got to college, I had such a hard time with reading critically, and it because I hadn't ever been taught to read critically. I was just reading to be reading and this is something Haas and Flower doesn't mention.

Tobin's "Car Wrecks, Baseball Caps, etc"

Wow. This one immediately caught my attention because I have several students that fit the profile of the boy he describes: "He almost always wears a baseball cap; I heard from a colleague he was obnoxious; he disrupts the class because he's a transfer student"...etc. Teachers not only put boys into a box, but female students as well. Often times, teachers as well as students catagorize students as The slow ones", "the smart kids", the jocks, "the stoners", "the popular kids", and  "the trouble makers", just ot name a few. I am ashamed to admit, I do this, too. However, when it comes to reading a paper, I purposely don't look at the author, just so I can read the paper with a fresh mind and no bias. I enjoyed how open and frank Tobin is about his experiences. Although he is a college professor and I am a high school teacher, I can relate to the situations he endured. He really made me think about how I treat my students based on my pre-conceived notions of them. Fair and impartial treatment is not only imprtant on essays, but in the classroom as well. I will definitely try to let students show me who they truly are in both writting and behavior before I pass judgements.

Sean Zwagerman's "The Scarlet P"

I think Zwagerman frames the dilemma here nicely. He explains, persuasively, that the power given over to surveillance technologies like turnitin.com can disrupt roles and relationships in the classroom and that the simplistic, "track it down and punish it" approach fails to appreciate some of the larger problems at play in scenarios involving plagiarism. Unfortunately, our reliance on these technologies to ensure trust can paradoxically blind us from what we really want for our students: integrity. Using Zwagerman's ethical framework, I think it would be interesting to imagine a set of values and competencies beyond trust and solidarity. The music industry, for instance, is beginning to learn that music data isn't as valuable as embodied experiences. Forget the album. Sell the concert, the backstage party. Make it into a 3-D movie and convince people they need to be there to see it first. For many teachers with firmly established beliefs, it may be hard to imagine what students and parents might sign up for if the essay dies, but I think there are plenty of three-dimensional, 360 degree, surround-sound writing activities that can help teachers, students, and writers destroy the concept of plagiarism. Will students continue to betray our trust? Of course. Teachers will betray student trust as well. But I hope we can do away with the system that memorializes these rather small slights with things like academic death penalties and even firings.

Grammar I have found chapter 6 to be very helpful. When I first decided to become an English major, my decision was based on me not knowing where to correctly place a comma. I thought to myself the only department that would be able to help me in that area was the English department! The only problem was, I didn't have a clue about Subject+Verb + Compliment, and this showed a great deal in my writing. I was missing what Williams calls "the basics". When  I  would ask my instructors, " How can I  fix grammatical errors"? Several of the directed me to what is known as The Brown Handbook. But for some reason I didn't find that book helpful. I wanted to be properly thought by a teacher, not some handbook. Although, my writing has improved I still struggle with grammatical errors.  I have done several work book activities, and  still struggle. It all makes sense to me now, grammar handbooks should be used for references since they don't properly teach us. Teachers should be given more time to properly educate us on grammar usage,  if it  goes hand and hand with essay writing. There has to be away to properly teach grammar.

Chapter 6

Grammar I have found chapter 6 to be very helpful. When I first decided to become an English major, my decision was based on me not knowing where to correctly place a comma. I thought to myself the only department that would be able to help me in that area was the English department! The only problem was, I didn't have a clue about Subject+Verb + Compliment, and this showed a great deal in my writing. I was missing what Williams calls "the basics". When  I  would ask my instructors, " How can I  fix grammatical errors"? Several of the directed me to what is known as The Brown Handbook. But for some reason I didn't find that book helpful. I wanted to be properly thought by a teacher, not some handbook. Although, my writing has improved I still struggle with grammatical errors.  I have done several work book activities, and  still struggle. It all makes sense to me now, grammar handbooks should be used for references since they don't properly teach us. Teachers should be given more time to properly educate us on grammar usage,  if it  goes hand and hand with essay writing. There has to be away to properly teach grammar.

Hartwell's Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar

I believe what this line of research says -- the kind of grammar that has occupied our classrooms for decades (probably longer) does not improve the students' abilities to write well. In some ways it must have been easier teaching English fifty or sixty years ago: traditional grammar analysis was codified and familiar, and just about everyone, both teachers and students, knew what to expect, especially after years of experience with grammar texts and classes. At the same time, of course, few people really worried about whether that traditional analysis was accurate or not, or whether it was the most helpful approach to teaching students about language structure, or whether speakers of minority dialects were unfairly disadvantaged in their education.

It seems that grammar drills may deprive our students of freedom and imagination and instead teach them to be passive recipients of information. If our students spend enormous amounts of time studying the formal patterns in which the words of a language are arranged rather than being invited to read, discuss what they read, and write about it, then, obviously, they digest little about composing and the highly involved decision-making that goes along with that process.

Like Veronica, I found Williams' emphasis on usage problems in Chapter 6 helpful and practical.

Wolfe's Discussion of Racial Group Dynamics

Even though this article appears to be impossible to read within the night it goes by quickly as long as one glances past the charts and what not.  Joanna's findings are quite interesting especially in an electronic-media based society we have become.  Of course, we have to remember this study was taken in 1997 before the storm of chat groups and facebookaphilia.  However, her focus tends to be more on women and more specifically on the marginalized women in conversations, which she finds out tend to be White females.  They are often shut out in the conversation, feeling suffocated not to speak, by the rules of being "kind" and essentially being a passive listener.  Wolfe finds on the other hand that White males totally bum rush all other people with an astonishing high rate of discussion especially in face-to-face classroom discussion.  As a white male who also has a latino background I felt like Wolfe's research might be leading to something.  I prefer a more physical, face-to-face environment though I also quite often use facebook without complaint.  Perhaps it is because I use more "assenting" terms than others.
Wolfe asks some great questions though I think (as discussed earlier) her research may have little to benefit in an age where almost all ethnic groups and even ESL students use CMC or computer media conversation.  I remember when I was younger people used LiveJournal, which had a feed like a journal.  The next craze became even more conversable hype with MySpace.  I never thought I'd find something beyond such a fantastic website where people shared music, conversations, and what not.  Then came Facebook, another MAJOR figure who (soon after I joined) had an immense boom in people joining.  It has since become probably the top figure in computer communication.  It also eliminated a lot of the other used chat items such as AIM and YIM which were instant message machines directly assigned to allow conversations like Wolfe's classes are able to do.  Now with the ascension of Twitter into the world CMC can take another step towards technological leaps that draw more and more youth to converse via the internet and through electronic devices.
This is one glaring difference between Wolfe's study and a 2012 study.  She mentions as well the lack of black students and asian students.  What could be interesting as well would be to have ESL students talk to native speakers, which someone has done already though not to the statistical accuracy with which Wolfe provides for us.
Her method is very sound, but I think due to technological advances and the increase in computer literacy there might be shocking differences in a 2012 study of the same test.  I think we must also be aware of our surroundings (i.e. where it takes place) in Austin, TX where there is a more segregated group of students as Wolfe seems all too aware of.  Therefore, a more balanced approach within a place like USC or UCLA might benefit the results a bit more.
However, not all is faulty.  Her research shows in great detail at least to some degree why people lack participation in classes and why some prefer internet conversations, which she seems to think lies in the fact that polite people do better in a controlled setting (CMC) whereas the more open setting males and other minority groups don't find a face-to-face challenge.  Of course, this is two-fold for though Wolfe doesn't mention it there has to be some distinction between extroverts and introverts.  Although these three classes she chooses the males and black females tend to be more open it probably has a lot to do with the fact that a majority of the males are extroverted where the females are introverted.  So while it may be partially a cultural problem, it is also a cognitive factor.

Chapter 6 Grammar

I found the Williams chapter on "Grammar and Writing" to be quite insighful. I find that grammar is one of the most challenging things to teach. Although it's not a part of the English high school curriculum guide, I make attempts to teach it because it's something that I feel students need to know. Williams explains how ineffective the traditional ways of teaching grammar are. I find this to be true from personal experience. I've tried the workbook exercises and have had students  identify the various parts of speech, but yet, many students are still unable to identify a noun or a verb in a sentence. The writing, at least from a grammatical standpoint, hasn't shown as much improvement as I'd like to see. Williams offers the suggestion of focusing more on usage problems. I think this is a helpful idea. Many of the students have common usage problems, so it would be helpful to focus on those. The specific examples he gives, such as pronoun usage, lie and lay, who and whom, and subordinating conjunctions and semantic content are all things I have reviewed in grammar lessons, but obviously, more attention needs to be spent on these challenges rather than reviewing drills on parts of speech. I will definitely consider many of Williams's suggestions when teaching grammar.

Tobin hates Baseball?

First attempts at anything are also consequently, our worst attempts. It does not matter if we are talking about writing, sports, science or an attempt to explain the world around us; just give the Bible a thorough reading and you will see what I mean. So I guess as I was reading the Tobin piece, I was feeling a little bit of empathy for the guy. I have not taught a writing class so I can only guess at the amount of bad writing the average teacher must slog through on a regular basis. Some of it must make James Patterson’s perpetually published drivel look positively Shakespearean. Tobin seems to be acutely aware of his own short comings when it comes to reading his male student’s writing without prejudice. He readily admits to missing much of the nuance of a piece because he is so fixated on baseball caps and attitude.

“By studying the ways that masculinity is constructed for men in the larger culture, we could begin to understand the ways that male students struggle to construct themselves in our classroom.” (Tobin)

I guess I see this piece very differently from Joseph because Tobin continually admits his biases and, as with the above quote, provide suggestions on how to avoid our own pre-judgments regarding gender. I honestly had not considered any biases of my own, but I certainly have them. I realized this when reading the essay from the 12 Readers project on prayer in the class room. The student who wrote that piece needed more guidance than I was prepared to give him after reading it. Tobin did lose me with some of the more detailed points he had to make regarding baseball caps and the reasons they are worn, but maybe he is just trying to be a little controversial with his writing. Publishing is everything for some people and I thought it was one of the more readable essays so far this semester. Joseph! Take off that ridiculous cap please!  ; )

Hartwell's Grammar

Hartwell is a very refreshing article to read and I want to say that I read it once before years ago in a Linguistics course...in any case, the manner in which he breaks down the various forms of Grammar and how we interpret and thereby teach it is interesting enough; including the recognition that the impact is one of importance. The recognition that it is a conception of power (which leads me to follow Marxist thinking and Freire) and thus our responsibility to change it exists....it is a little disappointing to think that Freire was written quite some time ago and that this article was written in 1985....a year after i was born....and still this is up in the air.
But i like the initial recognition that no study will be adequate, no experiment 100% as every teaching experience is different. Even if we come up with a standard rule, it doesn't apply 100%....but the problem is our standard rules are subjective to each individual teacher....
What I would like to know is how the induction of technical devices and software has changed anything...how Microsoft Office, spell check, modules and formatting software has changed the manner in which we approach grammar and the so-called proper use of subjective/societal grammar.

Tobin

        I think many writing instructors and tutors share and have shared Tobin’s experiences in reading the adventures or mis-adventures of the stereotypical male student.  I know I have.   I’m aware of my own biases and I try not to let those biases interfere with my reading of any student essay and I always try delve into their essays with an open mind.  Some of the more interesting essays I’ve read were from males students who fit in Tobin’s classification.

I distinctly remember a student who had a passion for tagging which is what Tobin would call “embarrassingly male”.  What intrigued me about the essay is that it gave me a small glimpse of a world I’ve never seen before through a tagger’s perspective.   I often see tagging in places where one would think is almost impossible to get to such as at the very edge of a freeway over pass.  You’d be surprised in how innovative these guys can get in order to reach those kinds of places.  Anyway, according to him, his essay really wan’t just about tagging; for him, it was more about an artistic release.  But as I read on, I deduced that there may have been some familial issues he trying to deal with hinted through some paragraphs that weren’t as developed as the rest.  I’m no psychologist, but like Tobin, I found myself trying to pry.  I was really more interested in why he considered tagging to be an art and the process/rituals of tagging, but I did ask him why he included some paragraphs of his family.  Despite being open with me about his hobby, he really couldn’t answer the question.  He just said he’d think about why he mentioned them.  Unfortunately, I never got to see his revision.  

I think Tobin, in his conclusion, was right about addressing our own biases or else we’ll tend to overlook these “types” of students rather than guide them and even learn from them.   

What a Train Wreck! by Lad Tobin

Yes, I must say it is so.  The man has to be the worst ego-maniac I've read in awhile.  He thinks that Tim and other male students who write about sports or near-death experiences in a car are cheap, predictable and utterly not worth reading.  This paradigm seemed misleading from the get go--and although he tries to make up for lost ground in this essay--Tobin has extreme bias throughout the essay.  I mean the guy [Tobin] is giving a confessional on a stand, preaching if you will, about problems with the way freshman comp teachers read these papers.  I totally agree with a majority of his change in heart.  It's an expressive assignment and yea, sometimes women aren't involved, but isn't it more about the person writing than it is about a teacher's preference?  I kept thinking this as I glided across this essay.  Tobin begins to change midway through as well.  He started to realize that: "hey, maybe I've been reading this the wrong way!"  Naw, really?  I felt very offended by the fact that such a man with prejudices against these sorts of essays was the director of a writing program.  You know I wouldn't mind it much as long as he didn't try to justify his answers!  He dug himself with the dung and his experience with his daughter and fellow colleague were good examples were he fails to see his faults.
First, with the daughter.  She's 13.  Hormones running wild and even she is less blinded by prejudice than Tobin is.  He wants to make an absolute.  He wants to be the one right.  It's not hard to hear the voice of the author in this essay although I'm not sure I like it!
Then there was Ralph.  He probably made the most sense to me as I felt the same way.  When Tim and Jerry write about an apple, guess what?  They're probably still talking about an apple.  We don't have to read student essays with the expectation that it should somehow be ingenious otherwise why would they be in a freshman comp. class?  And just because the author doesn't agree with the argument that does not give him the right to lower the student's grade solely for that reason!  Ugh...I just felt so offended by this work.  I felt like Tobin, who longed to talk about his student's faults, admitted some of his own, seems to have somewhat of an inferiority complex as I saw.  It was like: you were probably picked on in school and now your past has come to haunt Tobin where he expresses it through an article.  I felt like I was getting more into the head of the author than I was the learning anything about helping students.
Did anyone else feel this way?  Forget talking about a car wreck--this was a train wreck!  I felt hit in so many places by someone's prejudice against the kind of students who are popular or have personal experiences that mean something to them.  What more does the teacher want?  A lie?  A blatant lie?  I think Tobin teaches us that we shouldn't be prejudiced and to be prepared for all kinds of essays.  I just hope that Tobin dispels his own demons after this essay.  Be at peace, R.I.P.

Tobin - Car Wrecks

Although he begins his article with gripes about the stereotypical adventure stories of frat boys, Tobin concludes by urging instructors to address their own biases, fears and beliefs that may interfere with their ability to guide the raw writing of some adolescent males. This mindset was important for me to maintain when reading the sample student essay about prayer in school, as the subject and unsound argument structure bothered me a bit at first. But in Tobin's experiences, even the most unpleasant essays improved when he was generous and nurturing in student conferences. I liked that. He describes a series of conferences that help a shop-lifting story become a more elevated piece that was enlightening, entertaining, and honest. I felt like Tobin's approach to teaching composition was shown as flexible, nuanced, and practical because of the illustrated emphasis dialogue and diversity.

Mike Rose - Rigid Rules

So block can be triggered by writing to others' rules, overwhelming writing tasks, and, I would imagine, by spending too much reflection time articulating one's play-by-play writing process as it begins to emerge and by spending too long in the initial stages of a writing task. Sheesh, what to do?

Rose is asking us to help students to find that point between the clutch and gas... the point where students don't drag irrelevant rules into the game, and let themselves off the hook when they find that they've painted themselves into corners. A reminder that writing is all about choices and balances. We need to provide enough structure and scope to a project that students won't be blinded by the arbitrary-ness, and we need to allow them enough room to make choices that really mean something to them. And, as Rose notes, we need to provide reasonable response to what they've written.

I found Rose's solutions interesting (building a writing history, including information on composing processes). I'm also interested in how much impact individual conferencing can have.

Gender, Ethnicity, and Classroom Discourse

I would think that more variables need to be taken into consideration when studying a limited number of students. Don't get me wrong, a few classes involves dozens upon dozens of students. But in this type of study I would prefer looking at students from a variety of classes and subject matters (as the subject does affect the level of participation in each student) over the course of several semesters. Additionally, I'd like to see a variety of teaching styles. On pg 499. Wolfe makes the comment that the professors slipped into IRE and thus observing their interaction became difficult. But essentially how engaging a professor is also effects the outcome of the data which once again leads me to want a variety of different professors in a variety of different classes that engage the students differently. I would also assume that there should be some kind of control or consistency within the various observations.
Wolfe's study was interesting; especially in the onset in which she gives the background of previous conceptions and the issues with them involving the vagueness of terms such as "minorities." It was a good start but it left me wanting more empirical data. It also leaves me to question the areas in which this study was taken place; the ethnic make-up of the campus, city and community as well as recognizing the shifting changes in individual cultures as students are becoming more and more immersed in technology.

Bitchener & Knoch

One of the more interesting essays for me this semester. That may have something to do with the science geek in me, but I really appreciate the way the study and testing adhered to the basic precepts of evidence supported inquiry. There was a control group used as there would be in any other science experiment. According to the results of the testing, students provided with WCF directly post-test, showed a marked improvement in accuracy and the ability to retain and recall the information some seven weeks later. Students provided with all three forms of WCF tended to outperform the ones who hadn’t. I guess this is the result I would have expected and it seems to be common sense. It would be interesting to know if these methods have been adapted by a teacher and used over the course of a semester. I am wondering if it is feasible to do so in a real world setting. An experiment in a controlled setting is one thing, but to implement it in a class room setting and to publish the results would be an even more impressive experiment. Ultimately though, Oral and written feedback work best in combination and that the sooned the feedback is provided to the student, the better. 

Rose

      I used to be able to easily write essays back in my junior college days because of a set of rules I used to subscribe to.  I used to think that as long as I had 3 points that supported my thesis and a paragraph that addressed a counter-argument I had a very well-constructed essay.  This strategy, unfortunately, worked well for me in most classes of my junior college years because I realize now that many of the instructors there expected students to use rules or forms like that.  They design their prompts so that a student has no choice but to use that rule or rules.  

These rules are actually even incorporated in the prompt for students to follow.  The instructor(s) will have it all laid out for the student.   

Intro:  Topic

Background info

issue

Theses (with 3 points)

Point 1

Point 2

Opposing view (counter it)

Point 3

Conclusion

I guess there’s nothing wrong with an outline such as this as long as it doesn’t become a set law,  but I see that most instructors promote this outline as the one recipe for creating argumentative essays.   Several students I’ve tutored have once asked me, “Well, doesn’t it kind seem un-fair if you’re only going to present one point of view of the opposing side?  Isn’t the task to make a logical argument?  It seems like we’re only skewing the facts in our favor”.  

Another problem  is that rigid rules do often limit the student’s writing.  In my undergrad, I found that this outline actually did give me writer’s block.  I would try fitting ideas that really didn’t fit in some paragraphs in order to fulfill the structure of the essay.  I let the form dictate the function rather than letting function dictate the form.  When I had prompts asking for specific tasks, I would have trouble using the 3 point thesis format.   I would get writer’s block because I focused too much on what went where and what I needed according to the rules I knew.  

Wolfe's Gender, Ethnicity and Classroom Discourse

I'm not sure if the heavy winds were distracting me, but I found Wolfe's essay a bit hard to follow, especially the first ten or so pages. Wolfe focused on studies done which compared White students and Hispanic students, male/female students. The information shared dealt primarily with how the students faired in face-to-face settings vs computer-mediated settings.  There was quite a bit of background information given (I think that's when I fell asleep...I blame the wind!) But then I was revived when I read some of the results, and they seemed to correlate with racial stereotypes. The results showed white males as the highest participants in face-to-face classes and white women to prefer computer classes because they felt that their opinion wasn't heard in a classroom setting because others dominated them. Hispanic women were found to participate quite often, which actually went against the stereotype of them being "passive and docile." I wasn't even aware that this was a sterotype of hispanic women. I teach at a school that is 99% Hispanic, and the females at the school (students, parents, and teachers) are anything but quiet and docile!! One correlation that didn't surpise me was that the three Black females in the class were the most vocal of the environment. I found the the explanation to be based on stereotypes, but I guess in many ways, some stereotypes have some validity. "These results are consistent with studies suggesting that many Black women do not suffer from the passive and submissive gender role stereotypes that often constrain White women and consequently often tend to identify with traits such as assertiveness and leadership that are traditionally defined as masculine in White culture." (Wolfe 513) Asian students in the study were the least vocal and participation from Asian women was even less than that of White women. I found the findings to be interesting, and hopefully they can help educators find better means of communicating with students.

"Why I (Used to) Hate to Give Grades"

Lynn Blooms "Why I used to hate to Give Grades" article, is quite interesting. Although, she really doesn't give the best suggestions on how to making grading any easier.Bloom initially starts out talking about a cartoon show that she and her family watched during her childhood, then moves on to talking about how she hates giving grades, and how we can making the task of giving grades easier on ourselves by having "TA"support. As a student I hate receiving papers. Whenever my professors hand back my papers, I freak out because Im scared of the end result. Although, I'm afraid of the grade my teacher might give me I totally disagree with the Blooms "TA" support system in large lectures. Indeed I understand that its hard for teachers grade essays and return them promptly, but I wouldn't want Ronald to grade my papers. No offense to you Ronald, you are a great tutor, but I would feel more comfortable with Dr.Cauthen grading my papers. Having a STUDENT "TA" grading students papers doesn't solve the issue, all that does is take some of the pressure off teachers. Im not a teacher yet, but I think teachers should do whatever is best for them when it comes to grading.

Rose Breaks Down the Perplexity of that Vicious Devil Called 'Writer's Block'

Mike Rose's research on writer's block proves to have some interesting results.  He claims that some students block out good writing by perplexities (i.e. the ability to use rules, but sometimes move past them).  His students seem to offer good results.  He spends a lot of time talking about Martha in particular and the other UCLA students.  I understand that's he trying to show that most students can break through the webs and chains of writer's block by simply psyching themselves out of their habits.  However, I think that in my own personal experience that writer's block came to be when I was a younger student rather than I currently am.

I've noticed in my time as a tutor as well that some students are often stymied (one of his favorite words in this essay) not by rules, but by not having rules.  Mike Rose refers to the five-paragraph essay with one student where she was taught there should be 3 main points and that's it.  One girl follows that formula, while another student logically expands her ideas based on those 3 main points.  I explain to them that as long as you have the ideas in place then you can always go back and look at them again and so can the reader.  They seem quite shocked by this notion because often times they simply summarize essays or information rather than actually analyze something.

I think going back to the issue of experience is something which could probably use some research.  I know as an undergrad when I wrote about King Lear I had a hell of a time trying to write a few lines vs. my later experience as a Shakespeare scholar at UCLA.  Perhaps Rose's experiment is kind of new at the time he didn't really have a chance to see or view that.  Yet at the community colleges and universities age difference has become increasingly noticeable.  Although it's a good thing, I think teachers and tutors should be aware of this difference which should lead us into research dealing with age group.  One example I can think of is our literacy autobiography.  If you asked a 10 year old boy to express something that made him literate vs. a 55 year old student there's going to be a drastic difference in their responses.  So I think that's one link which could be further researched.

And speaking of assignments, I think subject matter is important as well.  Martha and a few other of the "blocking students" are Physical Science majors.  Although Rose doesn't want point any fingers he suggests that part of their writer's block comes from the fact that they become creatures of habit (or as in this case) structure.  I think he makes a valid point although one thing I found missing was what the other students who were the non-blockers if they were humanities students.  One's major or assignment I think has a major impact on a student.  I remember in English 1 (my college composition course) a numerous amounts of research topics.  Most people really felt empowered by the choice of their topic rather than hindered by it.  This I find to be another important factor that was sort of left out by Rose.  What was the topic and their range of interest and/or knowledge in the subject?

Even though Mike Rose has some gaps I think he makes some great points as well.  Most undergrad students are immobilized by the dreaded first paragraph.  I used to be one of those people who didn't start in the middle of an essay, but rigidly tried to make a hook sentence and almost force the situation.  In recent years as a grad student I've found that I'm a little more lax with style.  I still write the first paragraph, but I don't rigidly follow the 5 paragraph essay format anymore.  I found some relief in that.  Rose makes a good point about blockers who become so consumed by rules that they become paralyzed by their standard.  Once again, a level of maturity as a person and as a writer I think could lead away from this issue.

He also makes a good point that most students who have writer's block often turn in assignments late or rush through their writing.  I can't tell you how many students have come to me with a paper "due tomorrow" or "due at 10:00 a.m."  It often results, as Rose notes, from an inability to write the first paragraph.  It's sad in a way because they do have great ideas, but these students are often caught in THE HOOK SENTENCE, THE THESIS so on and so forth.  This can be remedied sometimes by simply asking them questions, which is a solution that Rose adds to the conclusion.  This often helps them to VOCALIZE their thoughts thus getting from them a more honest, real sense of what they want to say.  Rose's remedy has helped me as a tutor because I constantly ask people questions and even though it is a classical ideal I think it still works today.

This essay has its up's and down's though I am not surprised by Rose's findings.  I think what is interesting is how much it opens up for us who wish to research the topic.  He literally encourages people at the beginning of his study to further look into this.  As I've suggested earlier I think age groups in the college and universities can also determine whether or not its a level of cognitive maturity.  Whatever those findings might be I think my solution to writer's block is simply to ask questions and finding out what they know or don't know and explain the value of the rules or the value of sometimes breaking the rules with the hope that students can learn and gain from their writing experience.