Summarizing Chapter 6 of Bartholomae (By Coles)

This chapter highlights ways in which instructors can facilitate the revision process in student writers. One way is through class discussion and workshopping a particular student's essay. In this way, the writer can receive feedback and judgment about his/her writing but "informed response and support, including other possible interpretations of what the writer has described, other possible conclusions to be drawn from the story he has told". By critiquing someone else's work, the students develop their ability to analyze a text and try to get at making meaning out of it and to provide suggestions for the writer him/herself.

In contrast, written comments can provide more pointed comments to invite the writer to explore and to question his/her paper so that rewriting becomes a deliberate method of rethinking his subject. The example given in the text provides some praise of the essay ("good summary"), trying to get the student to provide more narrative through reflection, more examination of the issues. The idea behind the comments is to encourage student writers to engage with their writing as a reading, and vice versa. We do this to "help out students identify and interrogate the emerging meaning of their texts".

In this way, by receiving support from other students and from the instructor, student writers are thereby empowered to revise their own work and more appropriately adding his/her true voice to their writing.

Bartholomae Course Reactions

Comment on the course. What do you like? What do you have questions about? What is problematic? What will you include in your own unit design? How does the course fit with the principles and strategies that we've been discussing this semester?

What I like about the course and which I would try to include on some level in my own course:

• The rigorousness of the course. The expectations are high, and the students are expected to meet the academic standards set out by Bartholomae. (The course is trying to meet "cognitive" standards).
• Many opportunities for student writing, and subsequent review and revision/discussion.
• The desire to move students from simply summarizing a text to truly engaging with the meaning of text, themes, irony, and making conclusions to the students' own lives. ("socio-cultural", meaning-making)
• Treats students like adults, by putting them in a seminar style course/structure.
• I like the journal, both to reflect on readings/annotate but also to connect readings to personal life.
• I like giving students one hour a week to read in class and also the autobiography assignment.
• I like the reading assignments, I think they are good reads.
• I like the topic and making it relevant to the students ("adolescent development"). Some students might not like the topic, however. (It is "expressive" in this way).

What I have questions about/is problematic:

• I don't see much in the way of scaffolding the strategies, skills the students are expected to acquire by the end of the course. They are expected to learn by doing, by making mistakes, and by editing, but I can see students continually making the same mistakes over and over again without much in the way of guidance. In this way, the course seems designed as a "sink or swim" proposition from the start, and I think it will cause some students to give up and fail at the start of the course.
• I think peer review and editing is a double-edged sword. It would be helpful to see what other students are doing and compare to yourself and perhaps distance oneself from their own writing, but I think it can hurt self-esteem to have peers edit your writing and also seeing the same mistakes over and over again can be frustrating. I would proceed with caution here.
• The reading seems a bit heavy to me. Perhaps it would be better to warm the students up by reading some articles and short stories and then build to actual novels. I think giving students a week to read an entire book is asking too much from them.
• Although I like for students to reflect on their own lives, the course presented may make students feel uncomfortable sharing intimate details about their lives.
• It will be a challenge for students to complete an in-class final exam. I would allow them to take the exam at home and turn it in later.

Planning Ideas for IRW Unit

Here is what our group (Katie, Jordana, Susan and myself) have so far. The rest of the semester (skeletally, at least) if on Katie Bliss's blog at http://katiebliss.blogspot.com/. Kudos to Katie and the rest of the team for compiling our notes that we have put together on google docs.

American Dream Unit 1

The first unit can introduce the sub themes that will be covered the rest of the semester.

Students will read one-two articles each week to introduce them to the concepts. Unit one's end of the unit assignment will be a personal essay (though they need to interact with the texts and refer to the readings.) When they are in the full three-week unit dedicated to a sub-theme, that’s when they will write about it critically. Unit one will be more of a personal response.

Our Unit (Example)

Unit 1 Weeks 1-3

Week 1: What is the American dream? Is it still possible? (Jim)

Readings:

• Biography of the American Dream  (Time Article)
• The American Dream's Empty Promise

Skill Focus: Time management, critical reading strategies (narrow down specifically)
Pre-Reading Strategies

• Scanning 
• K-W-L+
• freewrite (what do you know about this topic? What do you want to know?)
• time management - lecture and writing (how do you manage your time? write a sample daily schedule and share with classmate/class)

During Reading

• Annotation (questioning, difficulties, stopping and reflecting)

Post-Reading 

• Summarizing
• Filling gaps
• graphic organizer
• reflection paper (allows student to look back on readings and reflect on them personally but also is a preparation for end of unit personal essay)

Week 2:  Economic Divide and Inequality (Jordana) 

Readings:

• Inequality Undermines Democracy , 
• Poverty in America: Why Can't We End It?  
• Defending the Dream: Why Income Inequality Doesn't Threaten Opportunity

Skill Focus: critical reading strategies, essay and sentence focus

Week 3: Twenty somethings:college (Katie and Susan)

Readings: 

• What is it with Twenty-Somethings Anyways? 
• Students Loans Weighing Down a Generation with Heavy Debt

Skill Focus: critical reading strategies, essay and sentence focus

End of Unit Assignment- Personal Essay (We can all create a prompt for our unit and put it on the handout for them to choose from.)

Community Building Article: "Risks and Rewards of Community Building"

Main points from this article:

• Community building in classrooms shows great promise. Students experience being valued, influential, and a contributing member of a "group that is committed to everyone's growth and welfare". Some of the benefits of community in education include: concern for others, democratic values, prosocial conflict-resolution skills, altruistic behavior, intrinsic prosocial motivation and enjoyment of helping others learn.
• Community benefits students in these ways because community develops autonomy, belonging and a sense of competence, all of which are basic human needs.
• Some best practices include: activities that allow students and teachers to get to know one another, collaborative learning, and curricula that engages students in studying the ethical issues at the heart of history and literature.
• Some of the difficulties and risks of community building include the potential to de-emphasize academics in favor of community building and that community building must be done campus-wide - so that community building is a consistent thread through the educational journey for students. Moreover, teachers still need to interject with their ideas and positions, not merely be a guide for discussion. Finally, community building may lead to students having lower scores on assessments of student's prosocial and moral reasoning compared to lower-community comparison schools.

Difficulty in Reading Salvatori Article on "Conversations with Texts"

In reading this article, the challenges I faced with digesting it began at the outset of the article. I was not quite sure what the quote by Gadamer was meant to relate to the reader, although I understand that it is saying we should have a conversation with the text and to actively question what we read as we read.

As I moved into the article itself, I was struck by the use of difficult, academic vocabulary. Salvatori used words I am not familiar with such as "hermeneutical" and "interlocutor". This made understanding the text difficult, more difficult than I thought necessary. Why couldn't she use more plain spoken English? The vocabulary and the structure of the text is, to me, highly academic and theoretical and is a challenge to understand.

I believe I'm having trouble with the text because this type of reading is foreign to me. I haven't had much experience reading similar texts. Further, the text seems targeted towards teachers of composition who are familiar with the authors Salvatori mentions. Per McCormick, I do not have the literary repertoire (I haven't read many texts like this in the past) nor do I have the general repertoire (knowledge about composition theories). I also do not possess the skillset to interpret the complex language and vocabulary Salvatori presents.

In order to figure out or make sense of this text, I tried to focus on the main ideas of the article and tried not to get bogged down with the details and vocabulary in it. I also read more slowly than I usually do. I think annotation in the margins helps to formulate my own ideas, paraphrasing and interpreting her meaning. I don't think she is proposing anything that different from McCormick, which I also found difficult (although not as difficult) in that she is trying to get students to interact with the readings and have students see the interconnectedness between reading and writing. I tried to read from the conclusion (there really wasn't one) to see if that would help, but it didn't. I utilized the subheadings to understand the overall organization and themes of the article, and that helped to a degree.

It became much easier for me to understand the article once Salvatori started discussing the specifics of her theory, especially when the article moved to discussing the difficulty paper. Re-reading is perhaps another strategy that can help me to better internalize the meaning of the article. Finally, I think one way of getting to the meaning is by letting go of my own self-critical judgments on my perceived inability to understand the text. Once I decided that it was okay to not understand everything I was reading but instead focused on trying to get something out of it (thinking positive!) I found the reading experience to be more enjoyable, akin to solving a puzzle, at least partially.

Difficulty Reading

For my difficulty reading, I read "Obama Survives, But Doesn't Advance" an article from Fox News' website. I consider myself a progressive and a Democrat, and I teach Political Science, so I knew on some level I would have a problem with the article.

The article is here: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/17/obama-survives-but-doesnt-advance/

I was already predisposed (based on what I know about Fox and their conservative bias) to not agree with the article, so I went into it with a disapproving mindset. I wasn't proven wrong when I read the first section. My sense was that it was branded as a straightforward unbiased news article about the debate, but the words chosen show an inherent bias towards Mitt Romney.

Examples include "(Obama) saw his presidential prestige clearly punctured" and "Obama did nothing to address his most serious problem: that Romney is now seen as a plausible president and the equal of the incumbent".

I found myself questioning the perspective, bias and "facts" as presented in the article because I do not trust the source of information, Fox News. This caused me to have a critical, judgmental bias against the article from the outset. Since my views are liberal, this goes directly against my general repertoire. I am uncomfortable reading conservative pieces because I am already predisposed to disagree with articles like this. As a result, I feel I can understand what information it is trying to convey, but view the text with a skeptical eye. It keeps me from buying fully into the message of the article.

I think to overcome my own bias, I would have to attempt to read the article in a different way. To read it neutrally and to gain information, as opposed to allowing my political views to affect my reading of it. As a political scientist, I can read it purely for point of views, arguments, support and evidence for arguments, etc. Although I might not agree with it, I can read it from an objective viewpoint and summarize the text simply for what it is. Essentially, that it is a viewpoint, not necessarily my own, that someone is making about how they saw the debate as it unfolded. I can respect someone elses' opinion, even if I don't agree with it.