Developmental Writing Exercise - Pronouns

I don't think I would do this with my 200 classes, although many of them need this, but it does seem like this would be a waste for most of them.

Many students have a hard time with pronouns.  They use them, but there is no clear antecedent.  Or there is a clear antecedent, but the noun and the pronoun replacing it don't quite match.

The exercise would be:

Have students circle every pronoun and then mark the noun it goes with.  That noun should be almost immediately preceding it.  And it needs to agree.  When it doesn't, students would rewrite their sentences.

I could have students mark each others' papers, but that not be very encouraging.  I think I would want to ask someone else's thoughts on that.  

Paraphrase

One of the things I notice with students is that they struggle to state what a quote actually means.  A good exercise for in-class would be to ask them to paraphrase claims.

What do individual words mean?
What the most important part of a sentence?
What does it mean in context?

In classes with lots of board space, I could have students work in groups and write their paraphrases on the board, but I only have that in two of my four classes at SDSU.

I could have them do that as an in-class individual exercise, but then I would have to read what they wrote.  Aaargh.

Hmmm.  Another idea.  If I had these printed out, I could ask students to do this in the first five minutes of class, when students aren't showing up.  Worth 2 points.  One point for getting it right.  One point for being there to do it.

I like that one.

I wouldn't even need it to be printed out.  I just need to put it on power point and show the quote on the screen.  I like it!

As I think about this, I could teach the whole idea of a quotation sandwich and parenthetical with this exercise.

I can put the quote up on the screen with the author's name and the page number.  Students can introduce the quote, include the quote, add parenthetical citation, and then provide a paraphrase afterward.

This exercise would work well for RWS 100, 200, and developmental or basic writing classes.  

No Time

I'm teaching five classes and taking a class.  I've got a B+, and I don't even think the class is that hard.
I quite SDICCCA and my internship.  I just couldn't keep up.
I have had 24 hours without papers to grade.  Only 24 hours.

I've learned a bajillion things this semester, and I can't even keep track of them.

This is hard.  

Research Training

I just tried to train students in how to research.  That did not work, and I'm trying to figure out why.

It's hard to do on a screen, of course, but my strategies were all wrong.

I have two more classes that will do that, and I really need to figure it out.  More later.

Content of an Argument versus the Construction of an Argument

Somalia - Day 1

The theme is social justice.  I wanted students to think about the needs of other people in the world.

If you can make a chance, should you?

I showed images of a current international crisis, the famine in Somalia, and then asked them to read four articles about Somalia and respond to them.

The responses were well written for the most part, as students described what they were thinking and feeling.  They adequately described the situation, and I was pleased.  Many were shocked that this was happening, but they didn't know anything about it.

Observations:
1.  I hoped to start off by appealing to their emotions.  I definitely did that.
2.  I hoped to get them to think about the controversial aspects of response.  We discussed that in class.  Not all students agreed about what we should do.
3.  I get some of the best free response papers I have seen.
4.  Images were essential.  In one of the classes, I didn't have time to show the images so they looked at them at home.  That really helped the students.  Many of them referred to what they saw.
5.  Appealing to a current event really helps students place rhetoric in context.  Even if they don't follow the news, they do want to know what's going on.

In every class, at least three students missed out on this very foundational aspect of the class because of the add/drop/shuffle.  I wonder if I should wait. I don't know.  

Add, Drop, Shuffle (The Worst Part of the First Week).

The hardest part of the first week of school was the add, drop, shuffle.

1.  Students want to add my class because it fits their schedule better.
2.  They want to add someone else's class and drop mine to create a better schedule.  However, they can't drop my class until they add the other one.  I cannot add the other students until they do that so the process is slow.
3.  Students want to shuffle their schedule and move to another section that I am teaching.  One student moved from the 9:00 to the 10:00 and then back to the 9:00.  To complicate things, she has only attended two classes.  Last Friday, three students in my 9:00 class asked to move to the 11:00 class.

Students show up at the beginning of class, the middle of class, the end of class.  It's exhausting.  I spent more time responding to emails about adding and shuffling than I did to creating lesson plans.

And responding in class to those requests took time away from the lesson plans.

Fortunately, I took good notes.  Unfortunately, I underestimated the enormity of the process and didn't create a plan of attack.

First Day:

1.  Write on board how many openings in the class.
2.  If students approach me before class and ask about crashing, let them know that I will address that after I take roll.
3.  After taking roll, ask if there are any crashers.  Explain that I can only keep 32 students in the class, that on the second day I can disenroll students if they do not attend, and that I will end class five minutes early so that they can sign the list.

The list would include name, red ID #, email, and are they enrolled in a section of RWS 200 already.
Chances are, some students will leave because they don't want to sit through the class.

1.  If they are not already enrolled in RWS 200, they get priority.
2.  After that, tell them I will give add codes on the second day if I have room on day 2.
3.  Priority given to students who do the homework.  (?)
4.  I think I shouldn't shuffle students on the first day until I absolutely have room in the class.  I need to think about this.  

I do need to be careful about homework.  Students can't do the homework if they don't have the book so I need to assign

One-and-a-half weeks into the semester, I think we're finally done.  I wonder if I should have done ANY work the first week of the semester!

And I think I need to ask Jamie or other lecturers what they do so that I can get a better plan.  More later.  

Social Justice Day Video - Day 2

We watched this the World Social Justice Day video from Rhodes College and read a piece by Ben O'Neil written in response to the video.

It became a great jumping place to conversation.  I posted a prompt on the blog and asked students to respond.

However, I wish, I had presented the material a little differently.  I showed the video at the end of class and sent them off with instructions to read O'Neil.

Here's what I would do differently:

1.  Show the video and discuss the notion of "claims."  Each student is making a claim about a right.  However, none of the students are offering any evidence.  This would reinforce the notion of claims and also the need for evidence.

2.  Who is the audience for this piece?  How do you know?

3.  What is the purpose of the author in putting this video together?

4.  I would ask them to make their own claims about rights.  What is a right?  I want them to offer evidence in the form of a logical reason.

5.  Next, I would ask them to define "rights."  The definition frames the discussion, and in fact, this is what O'Neil does to build his own argument.

6.  Finally, I would ask them to read O'Neil and respond to the blog prompt.

I also asked the students to write a rhetorical precis on O'Neil.  I would still do that.

All in all, the readings and video worked well, but I think it could have worked better.

Choosing a Theme for Readings

Except for looking at the Tucson shootings, my students had a hard time connecting to the readings I chose for last spring.  They didn't have adequate background information to understanding contextual nuances in the text, and the subject matter didn't compel them to even try.

A few semesters ago I showed Invisible Children to my students, and it really captured their attention.  Half of them were already familiar with the story of kidnapped Ugandan children forced to serve as soldiers.  About a quarter of them had participated or organized fundraising to assist the children.  The film moved them emotionally so that they really couldn't talk after they saw it.  I asked them to write whatever they were thinking, and I saw the best writing they had done all semester.  

The students connected with this film emotionally that semester, and I wanted to show it again.  

I immediately thought about a theme of social justice.  I thought about the famine in Somalia.  I thought about Give Clean Water.  I thought about education and fighting AIDS and apartheid in South Africa and so on and so on.  

And then I thought about Gerald Graff and his philosophy of teaching the controversy.  I wondered: What is controversial about helping people?  Why wouldn't we want to help the people of Somalia so that they don't starve due to drought and famine and war? 

Where's the controversy there?  (As it turns out, that's really only part of his philosophy, which has to do with exposing academic arguments.)

And then I started thinking about who was going to pay for food and who was going to deliver it and how much food is enough and do we also provide medical care and how much and to what extent.  And now it's not so simple.  Who do we feed?  How much do we feed them? And who pays for it?  

And are we obligated to rescue the starving?  We certainly don't feel obligated to do too much in this country right now.  

Now I have a controversy.  A pretty big one.  

I remembered articles from Peter Singer and Nicholas Kristof, who have both written about helping those who are less fortunate.  I looked up "social justice" on Wikipedia and found *

More controversy.  Graff says, "College paper assignments tend to ask for information or textual interpretations in a vacuum, not polemical engagement" (59).  This is the kind of stuff that makes writing incredibly boring for students.  Graff wants students to enter into the same kinds of conversations that academics engage in.  He wants them to examine claims and dispute them, to recognize that knowledge is continually growing and changing.  He contends that acknowledging and entering into the controversy clarifies understanding and perspective.

Now, I like Graff.  I like the way he teaches argument in They Say/I Say.  I like the way he demystifies academic discourse by introducing templates that students can use and adapt to suit writing.  He was the first comp theorist to describe "entering into a conversation" to me.  I like that idea.  As a result of all these things, I pay attention to Graff.

So I want to teach the controversy.  What is social justice?  Does it, in fact, lead to injustice?  Do we side with Rawls or Singer or Kuper or someone else entirely?  Let's examine the claims and take a position.

I admit I have shamelessly appealed to pathos in order to interest the students.  I am hoping emotional attachment to a topic will motivate them to tackle difficult texts addressing the controversy.  I plan to challenge the students by introducing academic journals.  I want to give them the skills to decipher those--Swales and Feak's CARS (Create a Research Space).  I want them to see that academics incorporate certain patterns in academic discourse.  Recognizing those patterns makes reading those journals less difficult.

This approach is a risk, to be sure.  I can modify my last project, however.

Graff, Gerald.  "Two Cheers for the Argument Culture."  

Starting Over - I'm a first-year teacher again.

Well, I finished my masters, taught four semesters as a grad student, worked as a mentor to new TAs, and tutored in developmental classes.  At the very last minute, right before the fall semester was scheduled to start, when I thought I would be unemployed, SDSU hired me and now I'm teaching four classes of second semester writing.

So now I'm starting over again. I have an office and a key and a faculty parking pass.  When I attend meetings, I am staff and not a grad student.

It feels weird, sort of like I don't quite belong.
I'm concerned about grading 128 papers.
I'm concerned about trying to meet with 128 students.

I'm trying to plan lessons, and I'm not sure what will work.

I want to try blogging again.  I want to articulate my goals and objectives, why I choose the plans I choose, at the same time reflecting on what I do and what I wish I had done.

Hopefully this will make me a better teacher next semester, and the one after that.