So it looks like I’m one of the last to post, but if you think reading all of yours has made it any easier, think again. Like Jackie, I have these little fears prickling the back of my neck, worries that needle and burrow inside my insecurities. After all, I AM a mere high school teacher of Freshman English. What right do I have to think profoundly about complex, idealistic theories of writing? Who am I to question the likes of Peter Elbow, Donald Murray, and Nancie Atwell? What makes me think that I could possibly have a viable opinion about process pedagogy?
Oh, wait…maybe…just a thought here…but is it possible…that precisely because I teach those goofy freshman how to put their ideas on paper that I might, that I could, and that I definitely should have something to say about these over-thought and often verbose writing theories?
So here goes…
First of all, let me say that I was impressed with Maxine Hairston’s explanation of a paradigm shift (Hairston 178). That phrase has always eluded me and much like my students, I usually skip over it in hopes that I will figure it out along the way (never happened until now). I liked the idea that a writing theory could have some basis in scientific theory. Take that science department!
But I digress…
Hairston goes on to explain how the “traditional paradigm did not grow out of research or experimentation” (Hairston 180). Instead it was born from the gods of classic rhetoric and literature scholarship. Great Zeus! Accordingly, this idea of composition features “…emphasis on the composed product rather than the composing process; the analysis of discourse into description, narration, exposition, and argument; the strong concern with usage…and with style; the preoccupation with the informal essay and research paper; and so on…” (Hairston 179) OMG! They could have take this straight out of the pages of my prescribed curriculum!
Now I know why the English office smells so moldy…
Without the fresh air of process pedagogy or some other “ogy” that I have yet to read about, that environment has gone stale and sour. The idea that students could actually have an original thought, could put it in writing without fear of rejection, could have an opportunity to talk about it, revise it, rewrite it, even fold it precisely and sail it out the window (provided I HAD a window) is certainly profound (and uncommom in my part of the world)
Let me tell you a little story: Once upon a time there was a beautiful, young teacher (this is my story, I can tell it the way I want) who desperately wanted to help her students become proficient writers, but try as she might with grammar worksheets and usage reminders and research projects, she failed. Many of the students were hopelessly stuck in the mire of boring topics, five-paragraph essays, and timed writing. Neither could they escape the quick sand of the teacher’s red pen. It was a disastrous road leading to failing grades and low ISTEP scores—and the principal wasn’t too happy either.
So on the advice of a friend, this beautiful, young teacher (work with me here) attended the Summer Institute for the Indiana Teachers of Writing Writing Project (ITWWP). Here she found the ideas she craved, the support she longed for, and the strength to stand in the gap for her student writers. Here she learned about the writing process, the freedom of ideas, the accountability of the peer group, and the art of revision.
She was revitalized. She had so many ideas that she had trouble sorting them out.
She was encouraged to research and investigate the works of experts in the field. She reshaped her own thoughts about teaching writing, grammar, poetry, vocab, and literature. Her lesson plans reflected this new found fire. And even though she based her ideas on the Indiana Standards, steeped her lessons in the best practices of research, she was (is) forced to let this fire simmer on the back burner of “what’s-always-been-done”.
* * * * * * * * * * *
I can’t tell you if process pedagogy is the best way to teach writing. I often find that anything in its purist form is usually so extreme that it dooms itself—but take this idea and temper it with what we, as a teachers of writing, already know works, and we just might have something. My grandma had a saying “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.” It certainly applies here. If we throw out everything we know about teaching writing or anything else for that matter, for something brand spanking new, we often will lose what is best about the whole thing. Even Tobin agrees: “I devote most class time to workshops, group work, writing activities, and discussions of inventions and revision strategies. But I am no longer as rigid or as pure about teaching by not teaching. I have gone back to my earliest days reinserting some of my old minilessons…” (Tobin 16). So in other words, I agree with Laura, we shouldn’t get rid of the classics, we must get our kids prepared to write quickly and without revision, they must be able to respond to a given prompt, and we have to teach them how to write that 5-paragraph essay in order to facilitate success on those damned high stakes tests, but can’t we do both?
Can’t we expose kids to all kinds of text? Can’t we let them have some choice over topics so they feel some ownership? Can’t we show them that there other ways to synthesize research beyond the clip and stitch of expository papers? Can’t we teach them that there are alternatives to that five-paragraph essay? Tobin says we can and so do multitudes of incredibly intelligent teacher consultants of the National Writing Project.
“I am likely to ask my students to read a Nike ad alongside an essay by Orwell or Woolf…but no matter how much I draw on current –traditional rhetoric or postprocess theory, I still strive to keep my students’ evolving drafts and their sense of themselves as evolving writers a the very center of the course” (Tobin 16).
p.s. I never thought my grandma’s idiom would be useful in a graduate class, but I am continually impressed by what I don’t know.
03 September 2008
02 September 2008
A few thoughts on our readings...
Foreword: I am suffering from an acute headache and therefore can only hope that my ideas make sense.
Readings: "Proceess Pegagogy" by Lad Tobin in A Guide to Composition Pedagogies & "The Winds of Change: Thomas Kuhn and the Revolution in the Teaching of Writing" by Maxine Hairston in the journal Teaching Writing
Process is what we all do as writers, whether we know if or not. We may have been taught in the traditional, writing our thesis, outlining before writing, creating “perfection”; but these requirements did not stop us from prewriting, drafting, brainstorming further, drafting more, revising phrases or thoughts, redrafting, revising those thoughts, etc. We (as students) knew that if we hit stages for the teacher we would get the points (some would agree this still happens in process classrooms), but how the paper progressed didn’t necessarily adhere to these stages alone.
Today process is the accepted method, some might even say preferred, for teaching writing. Educators are more aware of the importance of looking at process and guiding students explicitly through the process. However, process may still be viewed as too fluffy (focusing on process rather than context or social issues as Tobin’s article pointed out). Teachers are always looking at what the best method is for teaching students. As a teacher today, process seems to be the ideal way to help students evolve as writers and become participants in academia, but teachers can’t forget that also we are preparing students to enter the workforce and be participants in their community, in the world. Furthermore, teachers want students to become lifelong learners (seeing the wonders in broadening one’s knowledge base and the success a broader knowledge can bring).
In my opinion, the ‘best’ method may be a combination of pedagogies. Like Tobin, trying ideas and being unsuccessful (or sometimes achieving success), reading scholarly literature, and talking to other teachers has caused me to rethink and revise my teaching methods in some way every year that I’ve taught. I am constantly trying to figure out how to best give my students the tools they need to be successful in school and beyond. Because being a ‘good’ writer is important for communicating ideas and getting the job after school and being a ‘good’ writer is important for the stellar grades each student vies for, teaching writing becomes more than taking students through the writing process, in some regards. Therefore, process pedagogy, because it is holistic in how it views writing, may be a great foundation for preparing students for prospects after school. But other aspects within the writing class may need the values of another pedagogy to supplement and supply some structure.
Readings: "Proceess Pegagogy" by Lad Tobin in A Guide to Composition Pedagogies & "The Winds of Change: Thomas Kuhn and the Revolution in the Teaching of Writing" by Maxine Hairston in the journal Teaching Writing
Process is what we all do as writers, whether we know if or not. We may have been taught in the traditional, writing our thesis, outlining before writing, creating “perfection”; but these requirements did not stop us from prewriting, drafting, brainstorming further, drafting more, revising phrases or thoughts, redrafting, revising those thoughts, etc. We (as students) knew that if we hit stages for the teacher we would get the points (some would agree this still happens in process classrooms), but how the paper progressed didn’t necessarily adhere to these stages alone.
Today process is the accepted method, some might even say preferred, for teaching writing. Educators are more aware of the importance of looking at process and guiding students explicitly through the process. However, process may still be viewed as too fluffy (focusing on process rather than context or social issues as Tobin’s article pointed out). Teachers are always looking at what the best method is for teaching students. As a teacher today, process seems to be the ideal way to help students evolve as writers and become participants in academia, but teachers can’t forget that also we are preparing students to enter the workforce and be participants in their community, in the world. Furthermore, teachers want students to become lifelong learners (seeing the wonders in broadening one’s knowledge base and the success a broader knowledge can bring).
In my opinion, the ‘best’ method may be a combination of pedagogies. Like Tobin, trying ideas and being unsuccessful (or sometimes achieving success), reading scholarly literature, and talking to other teachers has caused me to rethink and revise my teaching methods in some way every year that I’ve taught. I am constantly trying to figure out how to best give my students the tools they need to be successful in school and beyond. Because being a ‘good’ writer is important for communicating ideas and getting the job after school and being a ‘good’ writer is important for the stellar grades each student vies for, teaching writing becomes more than taking students through the writing process, in some regards. Therefore, process pedagogy, because it is holistic in how it views writing, may be a great foundation for preparing students for prospects after school. But other aspects within the writing class may need the values of another pedagogy to supplement and supply some structure.
Blog-worthiness
It took me awhile to post here, and I'll tell you why. I resisted this. I'm old school. I don't look it (well... perhaps I'm just kidding myself...). But there you have it. My perception of blogging has been that it's just a high-tech version of the Jerry Springer Show -- a forum for any self-absorbed schmoe to have their 15 minutes of fame. Before you start throwing rotten tomatoes at your computer monitor, this only LOOKS like a knock to anyone who blogs. It is, in fact, a confessional of sorts about me and my propensities, which I've worked against for many years now. They include a tenacious, albeit subdued, desire for those 15 minutes of fame. Those little devils that sit on my shoulders... (yes, I have two shoulders... and neither supports a little halo'd sprite wearing a nightgown and a set of delicate wings). OK... I digressed and actually decided to leave that last sentence as incomplete and grammatically WRONG. Why? Because I'm a daring grad student who is now seasoned and gutsy enough to question authority and spit against the wind. Ha! I say...
Anyway, upon discovering The Blog... those little devils on my shoulders suddenly woke up after years of virtuous hibernation. They've been rubbing their little red hands together and whispering sweet nothings in my ears about how blogging is GOOD for me. That I am, in fact, Blog-worthy. That I DO in fact have entitlement to those 15 minutes. They are the self-same buffoons who wake me up at midnight to plow through a box of Godivas and watch Netflix reruns of Adam-12. In either case, the next morning I arise full of the regret and self-loathing I haven't experienced since that time, some years ago now, when I woke up behind a dumpster in Coney Island.
But never mind...
I have made a critical connection here -- an "ah hah" moment, if you will -- one which confirms that I do, indeed, have a firm grasp of the obvious. Perhaps... we can discuss blogging as a sort of public form of process pedagogy. A metacognitive approach to process. We write and think, presumably at the same time (unlike conventional composition which somehow expects us to do them separately). If we have a healthy dose of self-consciousness, we then go back through our writing-thinking entry, line-by-bloody-line, to ensure we're saying what we truly, genuinely want to say, and that it is in concert with what the audience should be reading. The latter is so subjective as to yield a plethora of blog entries which are probably not really blog-worthy... Like this one perhaps.
Suffice it to say that when I begin to teach composition, my approach initially would be to open a blog for the students. Writing is thinking; blogging is writing; ergo...
It is indeed a process of creation and self-discovery. You can't get much better than that. Well. OK... You can: The blog allows students to really consider the audience, as well as themselves. Assuming my students will be younger than me (and who isn't?) they might be more agreeable to the concept. For them -- that young, brave generation who has no fear of new devices that begin with a lower-case "i," I will encourage blogging. And they shall be dubbed "Blog-worthy."
Anyway, upon discovering The Blog... those little devils on my shoulders suddenly woke up after years of virtuous hibernation. They've been rubbing their little red hands together and whispering sweet nothings in my ears about how blogging is GOOD for me. That I am, in fact, Blog-worthy. That I DO in fact have entitlement to those 15 minutes. They are the self-same buffoons who wake me up at midnight to plow through a box of Godivas and watch Netflix reruns of Adam-12. In either case, the next morning I arise full of the regret and self-loathing I haven't experienced since that time, some years ago now, when I woke up behind a dumpster in Coney Island.
But never mind...
I have made a critical connection here -- an "ah hah" moment, if you will -- one which confirms that I do, indeed, have a firm grasp of the obvious. Perhaps... we can discuss blogging as a sort of public form of process pedagogy. A metacognitive approach to process. We write and think, presumably at the same time (unlike conventional composition which somehow expects us to do them separately). If we have a healthy dose of self-consciousness, we then go back through our writing-thinking entry, line-by-bloody-line, to ensure we're saying what we truly, genuinely want to say, and that it is in concert with what the audience should be reading. The latter is so subjective as to yield a plethora of blog entries which are probably not really blog-worthy... Like this one perhaps.
Suffice it to say that when I begin to teach composition, my approach initially would be to open a blog for the students. Writing is thinking; blogging is writing; ergo...
It is indeed a process of creation and self-discovery. You can't get much better than that. Well. OK... You can: The blog allows students to really consider the audience, as well as themselves. Assuming my students will be younger than me (and who isn't?) they might be more agreeable to the concept. For them -- that young, brave generation who has no fear of new devices that begin with a lower-case "i," I will encourage blogging. And they shall be dubbed "Blog-worthy."
01 September 2008
Process Pedagogy - Lad Tobin
Tobin's premise that process pedagogy is "reminiscent of 1960's political battles" and that "process pedagogy was decidedly anti-establishment, antiauthoritarian, anti-inauthenticity" (4) is an interesting line of thought to take for discussing the history behind the shift to process pedagogy. My memory of the 1960's is that most any "anti-establishment" movement didn't need too much action to take root. This period produced much cultural and political change in the United States and I'm not surprised to learn that traditional composition pedagogy was among the long standing establishments that came under fire during this period.
As a student in 1960-ish classrooms, I recall teachers wanting an outline in Roman numeral format and a thesis statement before a writing project could ever be started. It's odd to think now that the starting point was never a clean sheet of paper where thoughts could be written in random order and held for later organizing and development or that a paper was never seen by anyone but the teacher.
While Tobin's article lays out his own discovery process as a composition teacher and scholar, he identifies not only the movers and shakers of the process movement but its critics as well. As a believer in the model offered by early process practitioners, he admits to drawing "on current-traditional rhetoric or postprocess theory" (16) at times, but strives to keep his students' sense of themselves at the center of the writing courses he teachers.
As a student in 1960-ish classrooms, I recall teachers wanting an outline in Roman numeral format and a thesis statement before a writing project could ever be started. It's odd to think now that the starting point was never a clean sheet of paper where thoughts could be written in random order and held for later organizing and development or that a paper was never seen by anyone but the teacher.
While Tobin's article lays out his own discovery process as a composition teacher and scholar, he identifies not only the movers and shakers of the process movement but its critics as well. As a believer in the model offered by early process practitioners, he admits to drawing "on current-traditional rhetoric or postprocess theory" (16) at times, but strives to keep his students' sense of themselves at the center of the writing courses he teachers.
Winds of Change Article (Maxine Hairston)
Remember our class's reaction to and discussion of Maxine Hairston's "Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing" article during last spring's class? Given this, I wasn't sure what to expect from Hairston's article "The Winds of Change: Thomas Kuhn and the Revolution in the Teaching of Writing".
Hairston's use of Kuhn's paradigm shift model reminded me of a class I took quite some time ago where we were studying "systems theory". In the case of this class, we identified a system as a social group such as a family, a work group or a class of students for example. It seems that a system always seeks stability or "homeostatsis" by managing and compensating for stress created by internal and external changes.
In Hairston's article, the system under stress was and is instruction in the college composition classroom. It is interesting that she described the movement to process pedagogy as a revolution rather than an evolution since the term revolution indicates an overthrow of a system by forceful means as opposed to a change in a system that evolves over time.
If Hairston were to write her article today, I wonder how she would describe the current state of the system of instruction in the college composition classroom?
Hairston's use of Kuhn's paradigm shift model reminded me of a class I took quite some time ago where we were studying "systems theory". In the case of this class, we identified a system as a social group such as a family, a work group or a class of students for example. It seems that a system always seeks stability or "homeostatsis" by managing and compensating for stress created by internal and external changes.
In Hairston's article, the system under stress was and is instruction in the college composition classroom. It is interesting that she described the movement to process pedagogy as a revolution rather than an evolution since the term revolution indicates an overthrow of a system by forceful means as opposed to a change in a system that evolves over time.
If Hairston were to write her article today, I wonder how she would describe the current state of the system of instruction in the college composition classroom?
31 August 2008
What about Fun?
"...the writing classroom should be a workshop in which [the students] are encouraged through the supportive response of teachers and peers to use writing as a way to figure out what they think and feel and eventually 'publish' their work to be read and celebrated by the community of writers they have become" (Tobin 7).
"Process pedagogy has become so regimented that it has turned into the kind of rules-driven product that it originally critiqued" (Tobin 10).
---
This is scary.
What? Blogging? Nah. I love to type, and I've always felt rather confident in my ability to articulate myself in writing. I'd even go so far as to say I'm better on paper than I am verbally. In this place, an environment void of social neediness (well...is that true?), or at least, an environment where those social needs can be tended to with slow, methodical measures (the time I spend editing my writing to make it sound absolutely as I wish), I am at my best.
What's scary is writing academically publicly. If we perceive this blog space to be a little bit more important than a thoughtful journal, the fear creeps in and undercuts what I want to say. Instead of focusing on the kindly peers I want to know are out there, rendezvousing with my thoughts thanks to cyberspace; I imagine instead critics, doubters, and individuals for whom skepticism is often the easiest action--the easiest, and often, the one we are trained to consult with most often.
And I get that: I get that we need to be informed readers who do not take at face value everything that smacks us upside the eyeball. My students and I have already begun talking about angle of vision and how discerning what authors leave out can be as illuminating or important as deciphering what they leave in (what happens to this post if we practice that skill?).
But there's always the fear of creative deviance, the thoughts that sound much like these: Maybe I didn't do what the teacher wanted. I didn't really synthesize my sources very well. I failed to cite a significant passage, and if I did, I've perhaps unfairly juxtaposed two portions of text, and only as an epigraph to my post. I've left this whole business in the realm of the implicit point.
But, oh, what wouldn't we all give for a little fun?
Even in the process-based college classroom, there seems to be no time for experimenting with form, or audience, or word choice or any other rhetorical option. Even our freewrites are meant to funnel eventually into the work of writing a paper. Yeah, right, freewrite.
We need to learn how to play with words. It is in our very nature to do so, but our educational system runs counter to our inclinations. (Thanks, standardized testing.) In our obsession to calculate and quantify how we keep up with the world-wide Joneses, we've shot creativity in the foot.
---
Okay.
I know I haven't really said anything too profound (it's Sunday evening and I'm working with 5 hours of sleep--forgive me). I'm interpreting our blog as a place to play, as a place to try without too much pressure.
Here's to fun, and to thinking. *clink*
"Process pedagogy has become so regimented that it has turned into the kind of rules-driven product that it originally critiqued" (Tobin 10).
---
This is scary.
What? Blogging? Nah. I love to type, and I've always felt rather confident in my ability to articulate myself in writing. I'd even go so far as to say I'm better on paper than I am verbally. In this place, an environment void of social neediness (well...is that true?), or at least, an environment where those social needs can be tended to with slow, methodical measures (the time I spend editing my writing to make it sound absolutely as I wish), I am at my best.
What's scary is writing academically publicly. If we perceive this blog space to be a little bit more important than a thoughtful journal, the fear creeps in and undercuts what I want to say. Instead of focusing on the kindly peers I want to know are out there, rendezvousing with my thoughts thanks to cyberspace; I imagine instead critics, doubters, and individuals for whom skepticism is often the easiest action--the easiest, and often, the one we are trained to consult with most often.
And I get that: I get that we need to be informed readers who do not take at face value everything that smacks us upside the eyeball. My students and I have already begun talking about angle of vision and how discerning what authors leave out can be as illuminating or important as deciphering what they leave in (what happens to this post if we practice that skill?).
But there's always the fear of creative deviance, the thoughts that sound much like these: Maybe I didn't do what the teacher wanted. I didn't really synthesize my sources very well. I failed to cite a significant passage, and if I did, I've perhaps unfairly juxtaposed two portions of text, and only as an epigraph to my post. I've left this whole business in the realm of the implicit point.
But, oh, what wouldn't we all give for a little fun?
Even in the process-based college classroom, there seems to be no time for experimenting with form, or audience, or word choice or any other rhetorical option. Even our freewrites are meant to funnel eventually into the work of writing a paper. Yeah, right, freewrite.
We need to learn how to play with words. It is in our very nature to do so, but our educational system runs counter to our inclinations. (Thanks, standardized testing.) In our obsession to calculate and quantify how we keep up with the world-wide Joneses, we've shot creativity in the foot.
---
Okay.
I know I haven't really said anything too profound (it's Sunday evening and I'm working with 5 hours of sleep--forgive me). I'm interpreting our blog as a place to play, as a place to try without too much pressure.
Here's to fun, and to thinking. *clink*
Teaching Writing Philosophy...What Teaching Writing Philosophy?
When I first started writing my response to Tobin I was critical of his bias toward expressive pedagogy and his equating of expressive pedagogy and process pedagogy. However, this approach did not really evaluate my own teaching writing approach, and I fully intend to use this class to try and develop a teaching writing philosophy that will actually work for students. I am not sure this is going to really be a response to Tobin as much as it is going to be a reflection on where I am with teaching writing. So...
Like Tobin I have had a hard time focusing on a particular writing theory or even practice in my teaching. I have never been one to stand and lecture about writing or teach lessons on how to write the perfect paragraph. However, I also have never had a coherent approach to teaching writing that I believe actually improved student writing. This is hard to admit since I have been teaching for 8 years and should be an expert by this time. :)
I have asked students in the past to write in their journals every day, but I have found too many students who do not take it seriously. I know...I'm probably not doing it right because I haven't been able to get them to buy into it. That is just it, how do I get them to buy into it? I envy those teachers who are able to get their students to faithfully write every day and then those students become Freedom Writers or accomplish some other great writing feat.
I have also used paper conferencing, peer editing, and several other gimmicks that seem to work for some students but not for the majority of students.
One approach that has worked for my advanced students is group paper conferencing. With this approach, students hear how I critique a paper and they learn how to critique each others' papers. But, this approach is only practical with a small group of students and those students have to be somewhat confident in their writing or they will be devastated when someone criticizes their paper.
This year I am trying a new approach for my low skill writers and average writers. With this writing process students are given four to six writing skills that the paper is going to be graded on and that they must focus on while writing the paper. Though I have only used this approach for a week or so, I have already heard some interesting comments from my students. The final step of the writing process is to annotate their own paper telling me how they did with the skills in their paper. To achieve the best score they must be able to show that they understand a particular skill and know how to use it effectively. During this final process several of my students raised their hands and asked if they could correct the mistakes they found in their papers. I, of course, said yes. In fact, I'm not sure they believed me because I had to repeat it at least once in every class.
All of these approaches, I think, are a part of the process pedagogy, but I admit that it definitely seems like a hodge-podge. I know they do not all fit into the expressive branch of process pedagogy, yet even Tobin says that he is uncomfortable with some aspects of the expressive approach even though he still believes it is the best.
Like Tobin I have had a hard time focusing on a particular writing theory or even practice in my teaching. I have never been one to stand and lecture about writing or teach lessons on how to write the perfect paragraph. However, I also have never had a coherent approach to teaching writing that I believe actually improved student writing. This is hard to admit since I have been teaching for 8 years and should be an expert by this time. :)
I have asked students in the past to write in their journals every day, but I have found too many students who do not take it seriously. I know...I'm probably not doing it right because I haven't been able to get them to buy into it. That is just it, how do I get them to buy into it? I envy those teachers who are able to get their students to faithfully write every day and then those students become Freedom Writers or accomplish some other great writing feat.
I have also used paper conferencing, peer editing, and several other gimmicks that seem to work for some students but not for the majority of students.
One approach that has worked for my advanced students is group paper conferencing. With this approach, students hear how I critique a paper and they learn how to critique each others' papers. But, this approach is only practical with a small group of students and those students have to be somewhat confident in their writing or they will be devastated when someone criticizes their paper.
This year I am trying a new approach for my low skill writers and average writers. With this writing process students are given four to six writing skills that the paper is going to be graded on and that they must focus on while writing the paper. Though I have only used this approach for a week or so, I have already heard some interesting comments from my students. The final step of the writing process is to annotate their own paper telling me how they did with the skills in their paper. To achieve the best score they must be able to show that they understand a particular skill and know how to use it effectively. During this final process several of my students raised their hands and asked if they could correct the mistakes they found in their papers. I, of course, said yes. In fact, I'm not sure they believed me because I had to repeat it at least once in every class.
All of these approaches, I think, are a part of the process pedagogy, but I admit that it definitely seems like a hodge-podge. I know they do not all fit into the expressive branch of process pedagogy, yet even Tobin says that he is uncomfortable with some aspects of the expressive approach even though he still believes it is the best.
28 August 2008
Vent: We'll Call this One a Freewrite on Process Pedagogy
I was home earlier today, and I read the article about Process Pedagogy in our text--I'm blanking on the author's name; the book is at home in Plainfield--and he had me SO EXCITED about teaching students the process way, the way that W131 at IUPUI is set up to be taught. And I was SO EXCITED to go to class and teach my students how to do a freewrite, and how to talk about it afterward.
And then, reality. Why are students so suspicious of being allowed to write freely and to doubt what comes out? And why are they interested in tying up their belief systems so quickly, and so tritely, with nary a thought otherwise?
I love the idea of process pedagogy, but I don't know how quickly I can get my students to believe in it. It almost feels like they don't think I'm for real, like this is a bunch of bunk I'm trying to get them to believe, and they're sitting there thinking, "She's nuts. She's just a grad student so...we don't trust her."
I just needed to get that off my chest. My first group today made me so mad today by reading only the first seven or so pages of the first chapter of _Hunger of Memory_, stopping when they got to small number 2 within the chapter, despite the fact that the chapter heading, Aria, remained for many pages to follow.
ARE YOU SERIOUS?
I'll have a more thoughtful post on process pedagogy later. I just had a bad day at the office and wanted to unload. Steve, don't tell Scott Weeden to fire me.
And then, reality. Why are students so suspicious of being allowed to write freely and to doubt what comes out? And why are they interested in tying up their belief systems so quickly, and so tritely, with nary a thought otherwise?
I love the idea of process pedagogy, but I don't know how quickly I can get my students to believe in it. It almost feels like they don't think I'm for real, like this is a bunch of bunk I'm trying to get them to believe, and they're sitting there thinking, "She's nuts. She's just a grad student so...we don't trust her."
I just needed to get that off my chest. My first group today made me so mad today by reading only the first seven or so pages of the first chapter of _Hunger of Memory_, stopping when they got to small number 2 within the chapter, despite the fact that the chapter heading, Aria, remained for many pages to follow.
ARE YOU SERIOUS?
I'll have a more thoughtful post on process pedagogy later. I just had a bad day at the office and wanted to unload. Steve, don't tell Scott Weeden to fire me.
Welcome to our blog!
Hi everyone,
I hope you are as excited about our blog as I am. I plan to write my first response here--not just post it, but write it--so that I create it with all of you in mind. I hope you will do the same.
Hope you don't mind the blog's name, etc--it was hard to make decisions for the masses, but necessity demanded I do so.
Can't wait to read everyone's stuff!
Jackie
I hope you are as excited about our blog as I am. I plan to write my first response here--not just post it, but write it--so that I create it with all of you in mind. I hope you will do the same.
Hope you don't mind the blog's name, etc--it was hard to make decisions for the masses, but necessity demanded I do so.
Can't wait to read everyone's stuff!
Jackie
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