Schedule for English 6625.001

Introduction to Class
Discuss Syllabus

Activity: "I believe . . ." statements

What Is Composition?

Readings
Connors, "Introduction" to Composition-Rhetoric (HDT)
Crowley, "The Invention of Freshman English" (HDT)

Discussion: What can we learn from our history?

• How does Connors redefine "current-traditional" rhetoric? Why?
• What are the various "tenets" that Connors (and others) highlight as being central to composition-rhetoric?
• Crowley focuses a great deal on concepts like taste, character, and discipline. How do these terms/concepts function in the composition-rhetoric period? Do they continue to be important in our thoughts about teaching at the university?
• Why does Crowley focus so much on social class? How is that concept connected to "protecting pure English" and examinations?
• Why might both Crowley and Connors attribute the major change from rhetoric to "English" in large part to the importation of the "German model"?

What's Comp?

Readings
Rose, "Language of Exclusion" (CT)
Bartholomae, "Inventing the University" (CT)

Discussion: What role does "language" and "literacy" play in students' lives and in the culture of schooling?

• For Rose, what do we teach students about inclusion and exclusion through our classes?
• What suggestions, if any, does Rose offer for reconsidering the work we do with writing?
• What does Bartholomae mean when he suggests that the student "must invent the university" each time he/she sits down to write?
• What do students "invent," according to Bartholomae? Why? What problems might this cause first-year students in a writing classroom (or a writing-intensive classroom, for that matter)?
  

What's Comp?

Readings
Berlin, "Contemporary Composition" (CT)
Knoblauch, "Rhetorical Constructions" (HDT)
Sharer, "English 1100: Composition" (standard syllabus for graduate students)

Discussion: Who gets to learn and what are we really teaching them?

• Berlin and Knoblauch each create four different "epistemologies" (ways of making meaning or thinking) that they see as being the intellectual bases for the teaching of writing/literacy for at least the last 2000 years. How do these categories differ? Where do they overlap?
• What impact might these categories have on students in a writing classroom? If, for example, a student comes to a dialectical/socio-epistemic classroom expecting a positivist approach, how might this ideological mismatch create genuine conflict teaching and learning?
  

What's Comp?

Discussion: Epistemology continued (bring your "I believe . . ." statements from the first day of class, as well as your copy of the English 1100 common syllabus)

Discussion: Conducting a classroom observation

Process/Expressive Pedagogies

Readings
Murray, "Teaching Writing as a Process" (CT)
Emig, "Writing as a Mode of Learning" (CT)
Rose, "Rigid Rule and Inflexible Plans" (HDT)
Zebroski, "Creating the Intro Comp Course" (HDT)
Freire, "Banking Concept of Education" (HDT)

Discussion: What does it mean to write? to learn to write? and who decides?

• Murray's essay is a sort of free-form injunction against then-current practice. What's he reacting to? What's he suggesting we do instead? And, ultimately, what "right" and "wrong" with his suggestions? For whom do they work and for whom might they not work?
• Emig, Rose, and Zebroski all seem influenced by the psychological theories of Lev Vygotsky. How does attention to cognitive processes/procedures affect our thinking about writing as a process? learning as a process? And what role does the teacher play in such a processual pedagogy?
• This cutting from Freire's influenctial Pedagogy of the Oppressed will seem more explicitly political/politicized than the other readings we've done so far (except, perhaps, for Berlin's essay). What might be transferrable from Freire's Brazil to U.S. grade schools and colleges? In what ways does language-learning always-already oppress the "learner"? How does a discipline serve to "control" or "limit" those who work within it? Why? How does this apply to Freire's notions of education for U.S. students?
  
  

Process/Expressive Pedagogies

Discussion: Class Ethnographies from Previous Class
Activity: Literacy Maps

Homework: Begin working on your "Literacy Portfolios" for next Thursday.

Process/Expressive Pedagogies: Critiques

Readings
Berthoff, "Is Teaching Still Possible?" (CT)
Berlin, "Rhetoric and Ideology" (CT)
Hairston, "Diversity, Ideology" (CT)
Kopelson, "Rhetoric at the Edge of Cunning" (HDT)

Discussion: What "new"/other ways of thinking challenge our previous, perhaps "pat" assumptions about Expressivisms (and other neo-Romantic ideologies) and "process" as a pedagogical "terministic screen"?

• Murray suggests that "[w]e are coaches, encouragers, developers, creators of environments [for learning to write]" (5). How does Berthoff's "pedagogy of knowing" (as opposed to a "pedagogy of exhortation") blend with and critique Murray's ideas? In what ways does Berthoff's "thinking about thinking" reflect a later version of Emig's ideas from last week? How does Berthoff take Vygotsky (and Richards) further than our previous readings? Does it?
• Maxine Hairston, perhaps unfortunately, has been straw-personed in the last several years for her naive approach to the inherently political nature of the writing classroom; Berlin is one of many writers to do this (see also Strickland's "Confrontational Pedagogy" [College English]). What do you make of this "political" conflict? How do "Expressivism" and "Process" (as Berlin and Hairston define them) neglect their ideologies? What might the end result be for a non-reflective teacher?
• Kopelson's essay won the Braddock award for the year it came out because a committee of composition/rhetoric professionals voted it the best article of the year in CCC. Being the "best" suggest both quality of work AND the ability to provoke readers and to encourage new (perhaps previous unexamined) ways of thinking. How does Kopelson's thesis about politics and a performed "objectivity" in a writing class work? How is this different (or is it) from an Expressive pedagogy?
  
  Complete MBTI Personality Inventory. Print out results and bring to next class.
  

Process/Expressive Pedagogies: Critiques

Activity: Literacy Portfolios
Group Activity: Assignment Sequence #1

Homework: Begin Literacy Narrative; Draft 1 Due next Thursday

Rhetorical/Cultural Pedagogies

Readings
Connors, "Rise and Fall of the Modes of Discourse" (HDT)
Ede & Lunsford, "Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked" (CT)
Kinneavy, "Aims of Discourse" (CT)
Banks, "Short Handbook of Rhetorical Analysis" (web)

Discussion: What is "rhetoric" and how does it affect "composition"? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? And which is tastier when eaten?

• Connors, as per usual, takes through a historial account of those classic "modes of discourse" (narration, description, exposition, argument). What conclusion does he reach? And what effect does this "fall" have on teachers of writing (if any)?
• Kinneavy outlines more "aims" than one can adequately process (or memorize! talk about "banking"!), but what do these aims suggest about FYC? about teaching writing? and how do these aims usher rhetoric back into the curriculum?
• Ede and Lunsford's now-classic essay on audience suggests that the writer is often conflicted about audience in very important ways. How do the concepts of an "invoked" and "addressed" audience differ? What impact might this have on how we teach audience awareness to students? Does it?
• In as many places (and as publicly) as possible, mock and belittle Banks's pathetic attempt at explaining some of the "basics" of rhetoric . . .

Activity: Literacy Portfolios (make up from last Thursday)

Homework: Begin Literacy Narrative; Draft 1 Due next class (2 - 3 pages of rambling and assemblage)

Rhetorical/Cultural Pedagogies

Activity: Peer Response to Draft #1 of Literacy Narrative
Group Activity: Assignment Sequence #1

Due: Draft #1 of Literacy Narrative (bring digital copy and print copy)

Rhetorical/Cultural Pedagogies

Readings
Bruffee, "Collaborative Learning" (CT)
Trimbur, "Consensus & Difference" (CT)
Myers, "Reality, Consensus" (CT)
Shaughnnessy, "Diving In" (CT)
Rose, "I Just Wanna Be Average" (HDT)

Discussion: If "rhetorical" assumes speaker/writer and audience/reader, then one obvious method of being "rhetorical" in practice (as well as theory) is to engage students in collaborative work. How does collaboration, as such, put into practice rhetorical concepts we've been discussing? When does it work? When doesn't it work? Why?

Discussion: MBTI results and the formation of groups — how do groups work? what can we do as teachers to encourage and disrupt group work? why would we want to?

Due: Observations 1 & 2

Rhetorical/Cultural Pedagogies

Workshop: Creating a Digital Story (be sure to bring USB drives w/ software)
Activity: Peer Response to Draft #2 of Literacy Narrative

Due: Draft #2 of Literacy Narrative

Rhetorical/Cultural Pedagogies

Readings
Royster, "When the First Voice . . ." (CT)
Villanueva, "On the Rhetoric . . . Racism" (CT)
Villanueva, "Inglés in the Colleges" (HDT)

Due: Assignment Sequence #1 with Reflection

Rhetorical/Cultural Pedagogies

Group Activity: Assignment Sequence #2
Activity: Critiquing our Literacy Narratives

Rhetorical/Cultural Pedagogies

Fall Break | No Class

Rhetorical/Cultural Pedagogies

Readings
George, "Critical Pedagogy" (HDT)
Flynn, "Composing as a Woman" (CT)
Greenbaum, "'Bitch Pedagogy'" (HDT)

Rhetorical/Cultural Pedagogies

Readings
Malinowitz, "'Truth' or Consequences" (HDT)
Malinowtiz, "Politics of Outsiderhood" (HDT)

Group Activity: Assignment Sequence #2

Rhetorical/Cultural Pedagogies

Activity: Digital Story Workshop (Storyboards Due)

Due: Observations 3 & 4

Form & Function: Issues of Grammar and Style

Readings
Hartwell, "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar " (CT)
Williams, "Phenomenology of Error" (HDT)
Smitherman, "Meditations on Language" (HDT)
Hawhee, "Composition History. . . Harbrace" (HDT)

Due: Assignment Sequence #2

Form & Function: Issues of Grammar and Style

Activity: Grammar Competencies: A Multi-Grammar Workshops

Activity: Digital Story Draft Due for Peer Review

Assessment & Evaluation: Concepts, Theories, Approaches

Elbow, "Ranking, Evaluating, & Liking" (HDT)
O'Hagan, "It's Broken" (AGSW)
Nelson, "Growth-Based" (AGSW)
Holaday, "Writing Students Need Coaches, Not Judges" (AGSW)
Richarson, "Can You Be Black and Write and Right?" (AGSW)
Massa, "Alternative Assessment of Second-Language Writing" (AGSW)

Discussion: Why do we "grade" writing? How are "grades," "assessments," and "evaluations" different activities? Why do we distinguish them? Can writers grow from positive responses? Why are teachers bound by a desire to offer negative responses to student writers? Why does that make us "happy"? What is the point of "response"; why do we "respond" to student writing and how is that practice different from grading or evaluating student writing?

Assessment & Evaluation

Activity: Evaluation Workshop #1

Assignment: Discuss "Teaching Statement" Assignment

Due: Working Draft of Literacy Narrative: We'll "storyboard" in class.

Assessment & Evaluation: Methods and Revisions

Readings
Ketter & Hunter, "Student Attitudes" (AGSW)
Robins, et al., "Assessment through Collaborative Critique" (AGSW)
Bauman, "What Grades Do for Us" (AGSW)
Chandler & Muentener, "See How Good" (AGSW)
Adkison & Tchudi, "Grading on Merit and Achievement" (AGSW)
Young, "Using a Multidimensional Scoring Guide" (AGSW)

Discussion: What methods of evaluating writing seem strongest to you in these articles? What rationale do the authors provide? How might these differevent evaluative methods be used in different contexts and for different purposes? How would you communicate to students that you have chosen different response/evaluation/assessment/grading methods? What role might students' self-evaluation play in the writing classroom? What about peer evaluation?

Due: Observations 5 & 6
Due: Assignment Sequence #2

Assessment & Evaluation

Activity: Evaluation Workshop #2

Assessment & Evaluation: Portfolios

Readings
Council of WPA, "WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition" (web)
Pribyl, "Unlocking Outcome-Based Education" (AGSW)
Jones, "Portfolio Assessment" (AGSW)
Dodd, "Issues . . . Student Portfolios" (AGSW)
Banks, "Preparing Your Writing Portfolio" (HDT)

Activity: Portfolio Reading/Evaluation

NO CLASS: FALL HOLIDAY

Writing & Technology

Readings
Moran, "Technology and the Teaching of Writing" (GCP)
Anson, "Responding to & Assessing" (HDT)
DeWitt & Dickson, "Fools Rush In" (HDT)

Due: Literacy Narratives/Digital Stories

Writing & Technology

Activity: Technologies of Writing

Due: Teaching Statement

Discussion: Preparing Your Teaching Portfolio

Last Day of Class

Discussion: Reflecting on the Semester

Due: Teaching Statement/Philosophy