Though many of us are not confident in our teaching
philosophies yet, it is telling how we each can speak to which assignments we
were given that challenged us the most and caused the greatest growth in our
writing abilities. As I have said
in a previous blog, I have always valued reading and discussion most highly in the
classes I have attended. My most
resonant learning experiences took place in smaller classes with an active,
engaged teacher who mediated discussion between students. These discussions inevitably
contributed to the content of my research in the majority of my classes, and I
learned to think critically and make my own rhetorical choices by debating with
my professors and fellow students.
Seeing as one of the largest aims of this course is to get
students to see themselves as writers, I think it is vital to provide many
low-risk opportunities for students to express their ideas thoroughly without
the fear of being graded too harshly.
I appreciated my professors who, for daily quizzes, would write a
response question over the assigned reading on the board and ask for roughly a
page of writing in class.
Oftentimes, s/he would give us ten minutes for response, and the paper
was used for an attendance grade. While this was not exactly “free-writing,” it contributed to
class discussions as it allowed students to take ten minutes at the beginning
of the class to formulate what they thought of the assigned reading.
Style takes form the more a student is able to write. I think that, when first learning to
write, it is crucial for a student to take notice of authors’ styles and analyze
them; however, I am not sure that a beginning writer should be graded heavily
on their writing style. I think
that corrections should be made to emphasize clarity in a new writer’s style,
but smaller suggestions (regarding, for example, word choice) should not count as
direly. In regards to practicing the
analysis of style, one of the most enlightening assignments that I have ever
been given was to write an emulation of an author. For example, we were given a passage of Hemingway, and we
were to compose our own passage in Hemingway’s style. This exercise made me dissect an author’s
writing more thoroughly than almost any other assignment I had had before. We looked closely at each word’s
purpose in a passage and the author’s written mannerisms, which led to a deeper
analysis of the author’s rhetorical choices.
Though students do not begin research papers until 1302, I
believe the students should at least touch on the writing process in 1301. For new writers, formula can be a tool
that revolutionizes the way they envision writing a paper. It is almost imperative to break up the
process to make writing less intimidating to a student. Laying out a foundation of a clear
writing process—research, note cards, outlines, rough drafts—and going through
this process slowly at first can be extremely effective for certain
students (as long as the professor attaches the purpose of learning these stages to the process). As I think of it, the
idea is to teach students a thorough process first, and then let them know that
it is okay if they deviate from it effectively. I believe that assigning readings that exhibit many
different writing styles can help students to realize that, to be a good
writer, one does not have to operate through formula, as formula functions more
so as a starting point. The extra
readings that we would work from would most likely be short essays or stories,
such as Gawande’s “The Learning Curve” or Pollan’s “An Animal’s Place.” I would want them to form smaller discussion
groups in class to analyze the choices they see the writers making, perhaps
speaking to how the grammar, diction, or tone affects the author’s message, and
what that means for the impact of the piece. We might even discuss research papers written with different
formats and analyze the purpose or the use of each format. After, I would ask each group to
address the class with their findings. I would hope that, as such was my case, students would glean insight from both the readings and class discussions, and that would begin to affect their individual writing skills.
"I believe that assigning readings that exhibit many different writing styles can help students to realize that, to be a good writer, one does not have to operate through formula, as formula functions more so as a starting point."
ReplyDeleteCompletely agree with this, Emma. Prompts, templates, formulas--these are starting points, but I want to give students the chance to push beyond what are ultimately fake academic genres--when will they ever write such predictable (conveniently predictable for the grader) "analyses" again? Even if they enter the humanities as a grad student, they will not write this kind of micromanaged essay again (I would hope). They will write actual literature reviews, critical book reviews, abstracts, article drafts--and/or, on the creative writing side, actual poems, stories, etc.
So yes, exposure to and immersion in a variety of real texts, real stakes--we need more of this in the writing/English classroom.
Nice post, Emma. The more time you spend in your blog, as well as with the excellent and specific commenting/feedback you've been giving, the more in-depth you'll be able to go in terms of your connecting readings with your formal writing assignments with making sense of what's going on in the classroom. Nice to hear your reflection over how you've learned to think critically, through collaboration (Bruffee) with your peers (Rose). Another word for style, perhaps, is familiarity. That comes from reading, and from writing, and from working with peers on reading and writing. Rhetorically analyzing something that is relatively formal, for instance, will impact student writing significantly. It's modeling, ultimately, in addition to analysis. Ultimately, we want to grade students on the quality of their critical thinking, which is manifested in writing. It's hard to separate style and content, as Richard Lanham suggests with stuff and fluff in _The Economics of Attention_. The medium and the message is the message, in many ways. Good thinking about Gawande and engaging the class as a whole while also challenging individuals. I like Chen's ideas about immersion and exposure to real texts; this is what Mike Rose suggests, too.
ReplyDeleteEmma, I like the idea of students analyzing another writer's style (though I agree that this is not something that the grading should focus heavily on in an entry-level class). I think many students would benefit just from the awareness that there are varying styles out there, and one is not necessarily better than another. This awareness will allow them to begin to make their own choices in developing a style that suites them personally.
ReplyDeleteI also think that touching upon the process of writing a research paper would be beneficial in English 1301. Helping our students to develop a process early on can only be advantageous in later courses where it is assumed that the student is already familiar with how to write such a paper.