ECAC Presentation

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Blog # 6

Hello Ann,

Firstly, yes McCarthy can go on, but I agree that she had many good points in her article. I also enjoyed the idea of being a stranger in a strange land as far as different writing assignments. I took a playwriting class my last semester in undergrad and it was miserable. I had no idea where to begin and the professor thought it was alright to never show up for his office hours. I had never taken a writing course, so I was definitely in a strange land where I didn’t speak the language. This was a metaphor that I could relate to.

As far as writing being social, I like what was said on page127. Herrington, as I saw it, was saying that when you teach writing, the learning needs to extend beyond the classroom. Students need to learn for “real life” situations. What good is what they are learning if they can’t take it out of the classroom? Ann, as far as texting, I honestly don’t know what to tell you. Texting was not an issue when I was in grammar school and as far as high school, everyone was afraid that the nuns would take their phones away, so I don’t think that there was an excess of texting there. But I can see where you are coming from as far as it being a form of writing. My sister is in 6th grade and she can’t spell ANYTHING (and I don’t think it’s from lack of proper teaching). When I text her I spell everything out so she won’t be what I like to call a “lazy speller.” When I text my friends though, I barely spell anything correctly, opting for the number equals a word and any abbreviation I can possibly think of. So while I can agree that texting is a form of writing, I don’t think that it is teaching anything the way that Herrington and McCarthy saw it.

On to Bean, I suppose. I thought of you and your freshman the whole time I was reading this. I too learned all my grammar in elementary school. It makes me cringe to think of my freshman year English teacher trying to teach grammar. She could barely teach the novels we were reading. (As an aside, my 7th grade teacher used Mad Libs to teach us nouns, verbs and all that jazz.) I can understand how teaching grammar can be tedious, especially if that is not what you are supposed to be teaching. I thought it was interesting when Bean said, “Weak writers seem to make more progress in generating ideas, improving fluency, and organizing and developing arguments than they do in sentence correctness,” (p 54). After I thought about it I could understand that it would be easier for someone to come up with new ideas than to fix something they have been doing their entire lives. The only thing I can imagine helping is skill and drill. This is why I think that having students fix their own mistakes is a double edged sword. While it will be good for them to be able to recognize the mistakes they are making, will they be able to? That seems to be the problem in the first place. This also seems to be why teaching for the test is so dangerous.

See you in class,

Sarah

REFLECTION

I agree with Ann. I liked to hear what she had to say and while I appreciated her posting her blogs early, I felt guilty that I could not do the same. Someone else’s grade was hanging over my head and it is stressful. I liked this assignment and enjoyed reading what Ann had to say. It was nice to see the text brought to life in her classrooms experience. I wish she wasn’t having such a hard time with her students, but they really helped me out here. But really, the stress of Ann’s grade hanging on my posting time really unnerved me and I can only imagine how it made her feel having to do it twice.

Blog # 5

Dear Ann,

I was actually interested to read the Mike Rose article. I read his book “Lives on the Boundary” last year and it was very interesting (and I highly recommend it, if you ever have the time). However, it took all of my power not to through this article right off the back end of the ferry. I had trouble with Rose trying to choose a new word for “skill.” I have always functioned by assuming that writing well was a skill. Finally on page 358, Rose renamed it as an “ability.” I think I would have appreciated a little more if he had said this in the beginning, because as he tried to drive the reader away from using “skill,” I became more frustrated. However, once he said that writing is an ability, I thoroughly enjoyed the last two pages.

Earlier in Rose’s article, he was talking about writing tools. I liked his point that writing itself is not a tool, but what we use to write coherently, such as grammar and sentence structure, are the tools. The problem I had with this is that Rose seems to think that teaching writing is to simply teaching how to refine what we should already know how to do. I’m sure that you will have a problem with this as well, as you are trying to teach your freshmen what an adverb is.

I’m sorry, but that Rose article made me angry. I’ll talk about Bean now. I enjoyed this reading and I think Bean’s ideas about getting to student to see both sides of the argument they are trying to make because I agree that it will make a stronger argument. The thing is, I don’t think that Bean really gave a good example of how to do this. He gave an example of a student who has reached this point, but he doesn’t say how to effectively lead students out of their comfort zone. Did you see anything like this?

On a final, and hopefully positive, note Bean says, “Often students do their best work when instructional methods and assignments match the way they like to learn,” (p 39). He then goes on to say that every assignment cannot appeal to every student. I liked the suggestion of moving through types of assignments (concrete, reflective, abstract and active (p 41)) so that all students have an equal opportunity to do well. What do you think?

I look forward to seeing what you have to say.

Sarah

Blog # 4

Dear Ann,

Fulwiler’s reading was actually the only reading this week that didn’t put me right to sleep. I really liked his idea of having his students write letters to him. However, I think he encountered the same problem that you brought up in that he just does not have enough time to have ALL of his classes write letters. You say that you have too many students, but maybe you have one class that is a little bit better than others or maybe you teach an advanced class that you could implement this in. Fulwiler says, “I would write letters with all of my classes if I had time and energy. I ask other classes to keep journals…” (p16). You mention later on that you are teaching all of the freshmen the same book. Maybe if you like this idea and want to implement it your class room, you could have each class write a letter on different chapters. For example, class A could write a letter about chapter one this week and class B could write a letter about chapter 2 next week. That seems, to me, to be the only way that this could be incorporated into more than one class.

I also like this reading because I thought it was interesting that Fulwiler asked his students to write a paper using the letters. I did not see that one coming. When I have a paper due, I usually write some notes while I’m on the ferry going to work and when I get home, I refine the notes. It occurs to me that writing a letter to a teacher and taking informal notes for myself is the same thing. If there was only a teacher responding to my queries all semester long, perhaps writing term papers would be a faster process, because I have most of my prewriting done.


In regards to the readings on Bean, I think there were some good points made; especially that critical thinking can be learned. On page 4 Bean cites a list from Kurfiss that “supports critical thinking.” I liked his idea about students having to justify their answers. Instead of giving basic yes or no answers, students should have to explain themselves. Not only will they help themselves in the long run, but they may also offer helpful insight to other students.

The Non-Designer’s Design Book, I think, is going to be very helpful for our theorist card. I agree that repetition will be helpful. It will make our points easier to find as well as easier to read. I need to let you know that I am very nervous about this theorist card, as well as the presentation.


I also found Britton’s reading very hard to digest. His two different types of reading intrigued me though and I made notes about them in the margin. Efferent reading seemed to be what is required while studying. You have to take something away from the reading. You have to have learned something. However, it would help if what you were studying was also aesthetic. Aesthetic reading is reading what you are interested in. Not many students are interested in their math textbooks, though and so they probably approach them with efferent reading. Math textbooks are there to teach you a method that can be used later on. Your mythology book might be approached with aesthetic reading. Hopefully, your students will enjoy reading them and the stories will appeal to them while at the same time, they will remember the stories to use on the Regents.

Good luck with your double period freshmen!

Sarah

Bolg #3

Gee: Good video games allow players to be not just passive consumers but also active producers who can customize their own learning experiences. (208)

Nicoll: This immediately interested me. As I read this sentence I thought Gee was officially a nut because how could you possibly let students decide what they wanted to learn? Nothing would get done. But as I finished this paragraph, Gee talks about the students being insiders verses outsiders. I realized that Gee wanted the students to be included in what they learned. In this section, Gee is talking about game companies encouraging players to create their own “maps” and therefore playing the game more successfully. I’m not going to say I completely understood the map analogy, but it seems to me that what he is saying is that game companies want players to create their own ways to play the game and not have all players reach the end the same way. I think the way this translates into the classroom is by letting students choose what book to read from a pre-determined selection. If the students actively participate in what they are being taught, then they are learning, whether they like it or not. Another way to do this is by letting the students lead the discussion. Let them bring in topics that they found relevant to the reading or experiment and let the discussion grow from that point. Asking a class “what do you think about this specific thing” may not be the best way to get a response. The class may not have seen things from the same perspective and they may not be able to answer you r question. However, asking, “what did you think” opens up the discussion floor and the student may surprise you with what they come up with. What Gee is saying is that good teachers will allow the students to have their own thoughts and the good teacher will allow these thoughts to be developed in a way that best benefits the student. If the student isn’t engaged, then they aren’t paying attention; and if they aren’t paying attention, they can’t be learning. Letting them “customize their own learning experiences” gets them to pay attention.

Pratt: I use [contact zone] to refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other… (1)

Nicoll: Pratt’s definition reminds me of the meetings of teachers and students. Too often, teachers try to teach on their terms and the students try to learn on theirs. The two planes rarely meet. Teachers, being teachers, have a level of literacy that is obviously much higher than the students. Teachers need to be able to bring themselves down to the level of the students. My father has been a junior high school teacher for almost thirty years. He also thinks it’s funny to listen to rap music. One day he was discussing the latest Eminem song with a student in the hallway. Another teacher asked him how and more importantly why he was able to do that. My father said that he refuses to watch the shows that the kids watch and he usually doesn’t like their movies, but he usually likes their music. That is his way of relating to the students. It is how he gets into their contact zone. Pratt says that Guaman Poma got into Phillip III contact zone by learning his language. Unless it is a foreign language class, teachers generally speak the same language as their students. And students probably aren’t going to go to Blockbuster or Netflix and order a movie from when their teachers were young. It falls to the teacher to enter the students contact zone. If listening to Eminem is going to endear students to the teacher and lets the student see that maybe the teacher does know what they are talking about, then the teacher is just going to have to listen to Eminem. Just like Guaman Poma had to learn some Spanish to converse with Phillip III.

Russell: Instead of viewing writing as a complex and continuously developing response to s specialized, text- based, discourse community, highly embedded in the differentiated practices of that community, educators came to see it as a set of generalizable, mechanical “skills” independent of disciplinary knowledge. (5-6)

Nicoll: I think this is linked to the discussion we had last week in class. Unfortunately most teachers see the English class as the place where students should learn how to write. Teachers of other subjects don’t think that they should have to teach grammar and sentence structure and comma placement. And to some extent they are right. By the time a student reaches the level where they are required to write research papers, the science teacher should not have to explain the difference between a colon and a semi colon. However, it is not incumbent upon the English teacher to demonstrate how to write a document based essay for History class. That job belongs to the history teacher. While basic grammar and writing skills are learned in English class in elementary school, the high school English teacher has other things to worry about and their own curriculum to teach. It isn’t going to affect the grade on the History Regents for the History teacher to take one class or even one week going over the particulars of writing DBQ Essays. In fact, it will probably raise the grade because the student will know how to approach the essay. The English teacher should not have to bear the burden of teaching how to write for all subjects. Each individual subject teacher must teach how to write for their own class.

I liked this format of journal because it allowed me to reflect on what I felt was important instead of summarizing how I felt about the whole reading. This was much more focused and helped me stay on my point because I had a very specific reference. I also allowed me to easily relate to the other readings. Since I knew what interested me in the first reading, I could look for similar ideas in the other readings.

Blog 2

Gee: In School, words and meanings usually float free of material conditions and embodied actions. They take on only general, so-called decontextualized meanings. (84)

Nicoll: I agree with Gee to some extent. I believe that the reason for teaching these sort of half definitions is because of the “teach for the test” process. Teachers have to make sure that their students are learning what they need for the test and learning it well enough that they can pass the test. Basic definitions are often the way in which this is done. I think that teachers feel that there is not enough time to teach in depth, situated definitions. Teaching the lowest based definition seems to be the way that teachers believe they are guaranteed to fit in everything in their lesson plans. However, if, on the day of the test, the definition required is a situated definition, the teacher has to hope that the student can figure it out on their own. In the long run the student is suffering, especially if they cannot make the leap from point “A” to point “A+1.” By this I mean that if a student cannot build an idea off of the basic definition, then what have they really learned and how will they be able to function in higher educational classes. On page 102, Gee says that you can’t use the commands described in the game manual unless you understand it in terms of the game. In other words, what good will the explanation be if you can’t understand the context of what you are doing?

Gee: Rather, as group members are discovering things through their own activity, the good science instructor comes up, assesses the progress they are making and the fruitlessness of the paths down which they are proceeding in their inquiry, and then gives overt information that is, at that point, usable. (120)

Nicoll: This reminded me of Murray’s reading from last week. There is no harm in encouragement and in fact it is probably more beneficial than critique. Pushing a child in one direction over another will allow them to develop their strengths, and later they will be able to work on their weaknesses when they are confident with the skills they have already developed. While the teacher is assessing the work the students are doing they can not only offer encouragement, but the much needed guidance that is necessary for the untrained student to achieve the results they are seeking. The student is still practically applying what they have learned and they will still achieve a sense of accomplishment because of the guidance and encouragement of the teacher. Telling a student, “No, this is wrong,” is unhelpful and discouraging. They probably won’t learn everything they need to learn. Offering guidance in the form of “You did good, now try this,” is more helpful and probably will have more of an impact on the learner.

Williams: There seems to be a fear of empty space. (15)

Nicoll: In all of the examples Williams shows, the original designs are overly spaced out. I agree that there is a fear of empty space because the original designs are trying so hard to fill the business card, advertisement or page, that the designs are lost. My eye got lost between the text. In the examples where Williams changed what needed to be changed, there was still empty space, but you hardly noticed it because the information was easy to find and your eye was drawn to the information rather than scanning the design for the information necessary. Williams goes on to say that everyone knows the importance of proximity and that we use it, but now we need to use it correctly. As I sit here at work, looking at my boss’s letter head that he took upon himself to redesign last week, I can’t help thinking that it looked better before. His name is in the middle, but the phone number, email address, and office address are all on different sides of the page and the states where he is admitted to practice are in the middle. Now, I know someone from California is not going to call us and see if we can handle a matter in San Diego. It seems that the contact information was better off in the middle because that is where his name is and that is where people are going to look first. The empty space on the side of the letter head didn’t matter because it was unnoticeable with the original placement of the information.

Blog #1

Gee: On one hand, the theory of learning in good video games fits well, for example, with the best sorts of science instruction in schools today. Such instruction stresses strategic thinking and problem solving, often collaboratively. On the other hand, this sort of science instruction is rare and getting rarer as testing and skill-and-drill retake our schools. (4)

Nicoll: Gee is saying that, in the absence of the teacher who wishes to teach their students to actually learn the material for their own personal knowledge, and not just for a certain grade, video games could offer a solution. Gee goes on to say that once a player beats a certain level, the game becomes harder because it is assumed that the player is forearmed with the knowledge of how to overcome the obstacles (p. 34). In the modern classroom setting, teachers are judged by the grades their students receive on standardized tests. Therefore, the teacher begins to teach only what will be on the test. However, once the test is over, the student looses that knowledge because the test is, in fact, over. Gee seems to be suggesting, that since, students seem to be becoming more interested in playing video games, why not let them. If video games are going to help the students’ retention skills and help them to see the bigger picture, then what is the harm of them? The student certainly isn’t going to receive this benefit from the “skill- and- drill” classroom.

Gee: Learners need to be able to engage is words, interactions, and actions that allow them to take on the identity of a “scientist.” But what does this mean? (55)

Nicoll: I agree that video games teach and even promote the “thinking outside the box” mentality that seems to be lacking in today’s classroom. However, to me, Gee seems to be saying that the actual hands- on portions of learning are more important than what the teacher is saying. I feel that the student cannot participate in the practical portion of the class if they cannot grasp what the teacher is saying in the theory portion of class. I agree that the lab section of a chemistry class is important because it allows the student to see that what they are learning isn’t simply speculation, but if they are going to be able to fully participate in the lab, then they must have, at the very least, some knowledge of the chemicals they are using. Trial and error is a useful teacher but if you don’t know where to begin your trial, then you can’t learn productively.

Sorcinelli and Elbow: When students do high stakes writing they often struggle in nonproductive ways and produce terrible tangled prose. When they do low stakes writing, their prose is usually livelier, clearer and more natural- often more interesting- in spite of any carelessness and mistakes. (7)

Nicoll: This seems to go hand in hand with what Gee is saying. Peter Elbow says that low stakes writing encourages individual and independent thought because there is no grade riding on it and therefore, the student is easier able to express themselves. Gee was suggesting that video games provide the same opportunity. Video games allow the gamer to express themselves through the creation of their character. Low stakes writing allows the writer to express themselves without judgment. This allows the writer to say what they want to say and not regurgitate what they think the reader wants to hear for a good grade. Low stakes writing is a way to get away from the “teach for the test” thinking because it is a way of getting the student to learn independently.