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?