Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Abstract and WC...

Hey guys and gals--I passed this out last night, sans works cited. I still can't get the Cmap to post, so if anyone has insight into that process, well, great.
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Lefevre, in the chapter from Invention as a Social Act where she deals with implications, brings up issues for the general classroom that become more salient if writing is to be considered more social. My research question regarding these classroom practices is, in general, what does the writing classroom look like if we choose to utilize her line of thinking? More specifically, what happens to composition as a discipline if we begin to consider writing and the teaching of writing as more of a social act, rather than the banking method?
I’m seeing several paths that seem to diverge from this line of thinking. One reaction is directly (to me at least) connected to the catchphrase that I’m seeing in the educational literature (Bain, Light) that we should, as educators, “meet them (students) where they are” and then scaffold them closer to where we would like them. If we are meeting writing students, particularly in first year courses, where they are, then (again, to me) Cultural Studies seems to be one of the places to go. I believe this is where Berlin goes as well, in chapters six and seven of R, P, &C. his mediums, that is, including radio, television, and film, rather than staying within written texts, seem to be connected. While his aims have seemed to high, the content, I think, is very justifiable, particularly given the research work going on in higher education.
The other path(s) that I see in connection with Lefevre’s ideas are the WAC and WID concepts. If we don’t buy the idea of cultural studies, (or even if we do) then the students’ needs must be addressed in their content areas. The social nature still remains, as does the writing, but within and across disciplines, which, again, comes up in the educational literature concerning student success. (Suy, others)
After tackling these ideas, my primary goal is a picture of the “social pedagogies” that would enliven a freshmen writing course. My goal here is to deal with the implications that Lefevre raises, and actually design the course that both maximizes the “sociality” of invention and writing instruction, as well as minimizes the issues that this design inherently brings with it—authorship issues, evaluation, etc.
I hope to be able to take these three ideas and somehow meld them into a useful shape—the shape of a freshmen writing course, complete with syllabus and general assignments, much the way Berlin presents his courses in R, P, & C.

Bain, K. What the best college teachers do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2004
Bazerman, Charles & Russell, David R. Landmark Essays on Writing Across the Curriculum. Davis: Hermagoras Press. 1994.
Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 2001.
Berlin, James A. Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures. West Lafayette: Parlor Press. 2003.
Hayakawa, S.I. Langiuage in Thought and Action.—other info coming soon.
LeFevre, Karen Burke. Invention as a Social Act. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. 1987.
Light, R. J. Making the most of college: Students speak their minds. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press. 2001.
McKeachie, W. J., & Svinicki, M. (Eds.) McKeachie’s teaching tips (12th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2006
McLeod, Susan H., Erica Miraglia, Margot Soven, Christopher Thaiss (Eds.) WAC for the New Millennium. Urbana: NCTE. 2001.
Salzmann, Zdenek. Language, Culture and Society: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology.—other info coming soon
Villanueva, Victor. (Ed.) Cross-Talk in Comp Theory. Urbana: NCTE. 2003

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