Summer Reading 2008

Hey folks, our trip was great. We have a bunch of pictures up if you’re interested.

I’m glad to see comments and other things being posted. Here are some suggestions for using this weblog, based on best practices.

• Comment early and often. I’ve added a sidebar link with recent comments which I hope will help make it easier to track recent activity.
• Write early and often. Most of your writing should be “posts.” If you want to create a post for later, cool; but don’t publish it. It will be saved as a draft. When you publish a post, it goes into the weblog main list, which is reverse-chronological order. That’s great until the page gets a bit long; after that, things can get lost. Accordingly, I’ve re-dated and re-authored the post Katie started and Nan edited so it’s closer to the date Nan wrote it, and I’ve set Katie’s posts on the other books back to “draft” status.
• “Pages” are for things which are outside of the regular chronology of the front page, like the framework and our list of personnel. For example, as you come up with ideas for your semester project, you could keep them on a page you edit as you work through the texts. Feel free to use them in addition to posts.

I welcome your questions.

Perhaps you’ve received your texts and have already started reading “Guide.” I’ve only read the first essay on process pedagogy, but already think this book will be useful for all of us. There is an essay toward the back about writing centers, so that should help me.

Since I’m surrounded (happily) by teachers in this class, I look forward to picking all your brains. I’ve never studied pedagogy, so tell me what you think about process pedagogy, as discussed in the first essay. As the essay unfolded, I finally started to understand the difference in how I was taught to write and what my children experienced in school during the 1980s and 1990s. We have butted heads for years. All the lack of structure and freedom to “create” that they seem to enjoy has annoyed the heck out of me. I wanted them to have to write a decent five-paragraph essay with proper grammar, etc., as I had to do. BUT, apparently I was out of step with the educational process in vogue during their school years. In my opinion, the result is that none of them can write well. For instance, as I was finishing reading the essay in “Guide” last night, my high school senior wanted to read me an assignment from her college writing class–a children’s book that she and another girl authored with barely any narrative and very few pages. They got 100/100. I was floored. But is that type of thing part of process pedagogy? Am I a complete fossil to expect that she should know to stick with one verb tense throughout a piece or that colored pictures can’t take the place of actual writing? Is process pedagogy still considered the way to go, or as the author suggests, has it been tempered with a little old-fashioned structure?

One other question; then I’ll climb off the soapbox: how do you feel about peer review, which according to the essay seems to be a significant part of process pedagogy? I don’t like peer review. Never have. I don’t feel I have ever received any truly honest feedback, let alone any brilliant criticism to help me edit. How do you feel? Can you use it to advantage in a classroom?

Looking forward to your comments…Nan

Looking at possible format for Prospectus. Feedback on what to include would be helpful. Is this too detailed?

1. Working title
2. Statement of topic for research: include why I chose topic? what fascinates me? background/history? my qualifications/preparation
3. Main research question(s) intend to answer: how specific should this be?
4. Intuitive answers to questions: provides position to test and criticize; identify bias? project applications? possible outcomes? what I hope to achieve?
5. Summary of basic arguments surrounding topic
6. Chapter outline; sequencing of research progress–plan to move through exploration of topic?
7. List of research materials: working bib

Revised format for Prospectus, 5/19.

1. Working title
2. Statement of topic for research: include why I chose topic? what fascinates me? background/history? my qualifications/preparation
3. Main research question(s) intend to answer: how specific should this be?
4. List of research materials: working bib

OK, I’ve updated the framework again based on Katherine and Katie’s comments. I think everyone can send the necessary paperwork to Mark Mossman now. I’ll email him cc: y’all.

Please order the three texts on our list and start reading them in this order: Tate, Rupiper, & Schick, Guide; Shaughnessy, Errors; Pemberton, Ethics. Feel free to write a post here about anything you read. I hope to have network access at least some of the time as I travel; this will be my first stop. (From the Site Admin area, pick “Write a new post.” You can save a post as a draft and work on it later, too, and it’s on the web so you don’t have to worry about saving anything.)

I am looking forward to our discussions. As always, your comments welcome below.

…to find my way around this site.

Are we going to read the beginning texts in any order? Should we set up times to get together for discussions between Bradley’s visits?

I ordered the texts from Amazon; Pemberton’s book will be shipped sometime between May 29 and June 9. That’s a bummer! The others should be here sooner.

Regarding time frames, June 10 should work fine for a proposal. Bradley, do you want a prospectus regarding our projects? And, you asked about meeting with you–how about getting together around June 10 to discuss our proposals for projects?

TAFN

Katie made some good changes to the framework, and Katherine has added some comments to our first thread. I invite everyone to edit it, or to add a comment below with a recommendation.

Two things I want to ask specifically: is everyone OK with the time frame: proposal June 10, draft July 10, final August 10? Also, when should I plan to make my first trip to the QC? After school is out? When is that?

Also, does everyone here know about Google Reader and Google Docs? Both are very handy; the former for keeping track of weblogs and news (so you don’t have to check the site and others 20 times a day), the latter for quick collaborative work. If you have Gmail, it’s easy to get set up with both. I know Katherine and Katie have Gmail accounts; do you, Nan? Should we spend some time as a group working on those things?

This post outlines some ideas for texts and methodology. Let’s have a discussion in the comments, below. As we come to agreement, I’ll create a framework page which puts everything in writing.

Given the list Katie emailed, I’ve come up with the following texts. I’m trying to pick stuff I haven’t read yet (or haven’t read in a long time) so we can work through things together:

• Tate, Rupiper, & Schick, Guide to Composition Pedagogies
• Mina Shaughnessy, Errors & Expectations
• Clay Spinuzzi, Tracing Genres Through Organizations
• more to come
  

Each of you should continue flushing out the more specific areas that you are interested in. Nan has noted writing centers and Katie has a nice list. I would expect the process of reading to provoke thinking along those lines. Each of you will then find more things to read and discuss.

We’ll use the weblog to discuss the issues at hand. Like the wiki we used for the annotated bibliography, but more geared toward discussion. We can also use it to create pages which flush out research interests and for other things. We’ll learn as we go.

At least twice, I’ll head to the QC to (a) chat with y’all; (b) eat at an actual restaurant.

Expect the same amount of reading and work for a CBD graduate seminar; that is, eight or nine books and a sheaf of accompanying articles to get started, and then other texts which target the focus of your final essay. I suggest a seminar paper for the final project, though I am flexible. Basically the same framework as last fall’s 481: if it’s rigorous and academic, OK.

Schedule: proposal by June 10, draft by July 10, final by August 10.

Let’s talk about it…