QQC - Emily Scott

1. I loved the approach I have learned to take on genre from Dirk's article. While it may be obvious, it was very helpful for Dirk to point out that the research paper genre we teach our students in our ENC2135 classes will not be the same exact form of a research paper they will write for any other class. Genre is situational, contextual. Did anyone else find this nuanced take on genre enlightening?

2. Do you agree with Shipka that "...assignments that predetermine goals and narrowly limit the materials, methodologies, and technologies that students employ in service of those goals… perpetuate arhetorical, mechanical, one-sided views of production" (285) or do you think predetermined goals and rubrics help students form rhetorical situations?

QQC 7/25

1. The Naming What We Know excerpts touched base on a plethora of rhetorical information such as the rhetorical situation, prior knowledge, genre, audience, multimodality, etc. What concept were you in most agreement with/what did you enjoy about it? And on the other side, what were in most disagreement with/confused about?

2. This week's theme seems to revolve heavily around genre. In Part IV of the Teacher's Guide, we see an introduction into the 2135 class, which focuses on genre. How would you initially introduce genre to the class as a term and which strand would you see yourself aligning with in your classroom?

QQC 7/24/17

This week I feel that a common thread during the texts that we were assigned was reflecting on uses of genre within everyday communication. Kerry Dirk did an excellent job of pointing out why readers and writers need to start thinking of genres as rhetorical situations that happen more often than we would think. Dirk gave many examples showing how genres are applicable across typical academic conventions. Even the simpler forms of writing can be credited with the expectations of cultural "standards. " My main question for Dirk would be "how can we develop a good sense of when genre standards need to be questioned"? Is it dangerous to take for granted that we depend on rules in order to inform or writing of behavior in communication? I feel that Dirk has situated his readers in the middle of a complex tangle of social expectation.

Shipka's article on Multimodal Frameworks praises the potential of modern students who have been tasked with adapting to today's landscape of composition being found in many situations and on many platforms. Shipka encourages that students have inherited a new kind of creativity because of their experience. But I would like to ask, how much should we trust that our students can appreciate said creativity? Creativity is a high order skill that requires knowledge of conventions or standards in order to follow or disrupt these models. I think the more common instance that we can find as teachers is that student aren't normal aware of much how multimodality exists in their everyday lives.

QQC5

Shipka had many great examples of multimodal projects that have been turned in for her past courses. Though they were all very creative, I wonder what a rubric (if one was to be used) would look like for such projects? Unlike Kress’ description of a “single, exclusive and intensive focus on written language” or a specific essay prompt, the possibilities are literally endless for this project. How are we to judge “how much work” has been put into the project or whether the idea meets some immeasurable quality of being creative? Would there still be some sort of word count included, especially in regards to 2135?

Dirk’s piece seems an obvious candidate to introduce 2135 students to the concept of genre. Would you personally share this essay with your class? Why or why not? If so, would it be the whole essay, a portion of it, and would it be supplemented? If not, are there other resources you think would work just as well or better?

QQC

1. In Navigating Genres, Kerry Dirk mentions the headlines from The Onion and point out how funny they are to college students. When reading some of the headlines, like "Commas, Turning Up, Everywhere", it's possible to understand that a news website would not talk about commas, and if it did, the headline would look different. Thus, do you think that the not abiding to the news genre is what makes the headlines at The Onion funny? And if so, would that be a rule for inserting humor in different genres?

2. What kind of influence do you think multi-modal texts have on the definition of genres? Would a multimodal texts be a new genre or a hybrid of several different ones?

QQC5

I loved the discussion of writing as performative because it verbalized exactly how I feel about writing. What are some ways we can bring the “performance” aspect to the forefront for students as they explore themselves as writers (i.e. should we encourage talking aloud when drafting in class, giving a speech, taking a text and turning it into a video performance, etc)? How might we also connect this idea of writing as epistemic and knowledge-making with this, or is that something we should let/hope students find for themselves?

Dirk discusses that too much choice or freedom in communication can lead to chaos and obfuscate meaning, but also that genres are not plug-and-play and formulaic, which I think is something we all agree on. But (and I may be echoing others with this question) how do we figure out how to teach students these conventions and still allow for play within their chosen genres? Might we use rationales to our advantage here to help both students and ourselves understand when there has been a purposeful breaking from convention (and what that means)? Should we first encourage them to play within the realm of what is known whilst in class, or take risks here while the stakes are not quite so high?

In one of the excerpts of "Naming What We Know," while the author discusses how we relate all things we've read to other things we've read, they write, "The concept of texts getting their meaning from other texts may conflict with Western notions of authorship, creativity, and originality." How do you think this plays into our discussion of plagiarism from last week?

To paraphrase Dirk, it is risky to not follow conventions of a certain genre as the intended audience might not understand the message, but isn't that something we challenge our students to do? To remediate one genre into another and challenge genre conventions and blur the lines between them?

QQC 7/24

1. The Bedford Book of Genres dedicates the initial chapters to outlining different types of genres and how rhetoric operates within them. The book offers many examples of genres and offers a thorough description of each. Do you see yourself prompting your students to compose any of the example genres in class? If so, which ones and why?

2. In "A Multimodal Task-Based Framework for Composing" Shipka enumerates the benefits of these multimodal (and sometimes multi-genre) projects. I see the value in these assignments (especially in terms of how it might foster a healthy revision process), but I wonder how these projects might inhibit some students who lack the material resources, space to create, and time to undertake more ambitious projects. While I understand a large part of their evaluation will consist of the reflection, do you think these projects privilege certain students more than others? Do you have any other concerns about these assignments?  

QQC 07 24

1) I'm so interested in what y'all think about Shipka. I love her, but I almost get this sense of naivety about the struggles of teaching. I always want to say, "have you never had an actual student?" because her students seem to be on the level of designers, artists, excellent researchers. They are inquisitive and smart and motivated. Okay, I'll stop.

Question is: On page 286, Shipka discusses having students turn in action sequences that explain the student's course of action for completing assignment. She also discusses how students have instructions for how the reader should experience the finished text.
How might you instruct students to create their own plan of action? How do we get them to make more than "research, write, review"?


2) We've read A LOT about genre between our two classes for today. What do you think the main function of teaching genre and genre conventions to our students should be?
Is it to know how to work within conventions? To critically subvert conventions? Something else?

Reading the Naming What We Know excerpts got me thinking a lot about viral culture and its implications for the transfer and spread of knowledge across various spreads of time. Does anyone feel that viral cultures manipulate cultural trends in order to extract profit from them without much regard for the future?

The recurrence and discussion of Bitzer throughout these texts with regard to genre has me thinking about the extent to which genre is something that emerges as a direct consequence for a need for them. The reason I'm thinking that this is so provocative is because it makes me think back to our discussion about originality and how some people say it doesn't exist. However, the innovations that seem necessary within genres makes me think that originality may be better thought of as imminent rather than mythical.

7/25 QQ

I tutored today in the writing center and one of the questions Elise had was about the Artist's Statement. We looked up some examples and talked about what she might want to say about her piece. I really like the idea of requiring an Author/Artist's Statement with projects. It seems like it would stimulate reflection, and maybe help the student as they are revising. What do y'all think? Should it be part of the final grade somehow?

In the encyclopedia entries section of the BBG they address the issue of students using Wikipedia as an academic reference. They cite a study the journal Nature conducted that showed Wikipedia had no more errors than The Encyclopedia Brittanica. I'm not arguing for Wikipedia as a source, but what do y'all think of using it as a tool to help students assess sources. The references after Wikipedia entries are a way in which we assess the accuracy of the entry. If the student can prove the entry they want to cite is well sourced should they be able to use it?

QQC 7/25/17

1. I don’t know about your internship, but my class just began working on their project in three genres (that’s less than two weeks of work!).  Compare this to the Teacher’s Guide which contains threads allowing students a month to focus on the project.  Also consider Shipka, who discusses that we might not always expect students to think outside of the box when it comes to these types of projects.  (So they might not do a video, which takes time for planning, creating, and knowledge of how to make and edit a video).  I apologize for all of this context!  How would the different time frames alter your expectations for the different genres students work in?
2.  Would you or how would you emphasize for your students the intertextuality of all texts Roozen discusses beginning on page 44 of the Naming What We Know excerpts?  Would it depend on what discipline you discuss (for instance, a news article compared with a scientific study)?

QQC Bog July 25 Kristy

1. In Kerry Dirk’s text “Navigating Genres”, he uses George Washington’s first State of the Union address as a new medium in which the President of the United States communicates with the people. He goes on to suggest that after several President’s after him followed the same form and structure as Washington used the State of the Union became a genre. So how many instances does it take for a new medium to become a genre? Is there some numerical assignment we can use before it moves from new form to genre?

2. In response to Jody Shipka’s “A Multimodal Task-Based Framework for Composing”, she suggests in her text that multimodal based classroom projects allow students to use creative agency when working across genres and it adds “three dimensional layers to words and visuals” (278). I am really sold on this style of portfolio projects, I like the OED projects she uses as an example. However, she does recount that some of her students felt frustrated and that the project was time consuming (296). Should we give students an option for straight academic versus a creative portfolio? Is multimodal something you would use in your class? Thoughts?

QQC 7/24/17

1. I’m thinking about Dirk’s note about the State of the Union Address – about how when it was first made it was the only text in its genre, then others followed suit. I guess I’m wondering, can you have a genre with only one text in it, or was the genre made after other texts were made in the image of the first? And, to relate it to teaching genre, if a genre can have only one text, how do we avoid turning the conversation into one about how anything can be a genre or nothing belongs in a genre?

2. Shipka praises multimodality in her essay, yet writes in only one mode. My questions here are similar to the questions I asked while learning things like the quadratic formula. That is, how are students going to use multimodal projects in their professional lives? Especially when their champions are not using them in their professional work. I understand that they help develop skills and strategies, but what practical applications do they have? 

7.25.17 QQC

11. Do you agree with Lerner in “Writing Is a Way of Enacting Disciplinarity” that “the relationship between disciplinary knowledge making and the ways writing and other communicative practices create and communicate that knowledge are at the heart of what defines particular disciplines” (40)? Why or why not? I got the sense that he was specifically referring to formatting conventions within a discipline (his examples were just citations and formatting). What do you think shapes a discipline’s boundaries?

22. Reading Shipka’s article made me finally realize what many of the readings have been proposing—a fundamental restructuring of the ways we view, and therefore teach, composition in our contemporary context. What are your opinions on this? Do you think we should completely move away from the traditional writing/typing on paper mode of composition to this more open-ended kind of pedagogy? Or do you think there is some merit to the traditional ways of teaching composition that we are all used to and have experienced that such an uprooting lacks?

Week 5: Tuesday, 7/25

1. Dirk's article discusses both the discussion of genre as both types as well as extending that discussion towards the understanding of genre as a socially constructed fluid and flexible concept. As far as the classroom is concerned, how might we negotiate this understanding to our students? Does the understanding of genre fall along a continuum or is the concept of a continuum somehow too restrictive for the student?

2. Shipka's article was probably one of my favorite articles so far! (This is not important to my question, but I just wanted to throw it out there). Multimodality meets most of our students where they live today and moves away from overly prescriptive composing so students have the opportunity to negotiate rhetorical choices. Where do you foresee student push-back or frustrations with this and how might they be alleviated?

QQC Week 5 1

1. In the excerpts from Naming What We Know, it discusses how "texts get their meaning from other texts" and how this goes against Western ideals of authorship. Is this more of a stealing/borrowing of meaning from another text OR a sharing of meaning in the vain of making writing communicational? How can this be incorporated in the classroom regardless of either answer?

2. Dirk discusses the value in genres and how teaching genres prepares students to recognize their rhetorical situation and response in the appropriate way. However, does anyone think that this could restrict a student's voice in their writing by following this rules and norms of the respective genre? Why or why not?

QQC 7/17/17

1) I found Pat Belanoff's conversation on grading and assessment very interesting. In the article, Belanoff described grading students as going hand in hand with teaching them how to conform.I think this was an excellent example when thinking of the counter-intuitive approach of evaluating writing using a hierarchical approach. I want to ask Belanoff what he thinks would be a better way to prepare students for the kind of assessment they receive in composition classes. As established, composition requires a more subjective system of assessment, thus how can we deprogram students' expectations or tendency to compare themselves with one another. I know in my own experience student's love to compare themselves to others, how can we put these experiences in context if we are talking about writing?

2) When looking over the Richard Straub piece and his conversation on teacher response as conversation, I think that Straub highlights important misconceptions about composition. Often times students carry a misconception that good writing is a perfect process. For example, students might think that a "good writer" is someone immersed in the field of English who understands all the rules of grammar and produces polished papers over the course of a couple of hours. Straub breaks down this process by pointing out the value in beginning writing that the shitty has value because of how the experience develops "young writers." I would like to ask Straub how we can extend this conversation to include other aspects of composition. How can build confident writings from the beginning? Is this a process that can be encourage from high school or is it required for college students to be the only "mature-enough" writers that can see the professor as someone to engage in a conversation with and see as mentor?

QQC

In Daiker’s “Learning to Praise,” he introduces what we all probably assumed but is now enforced with data: that multiple studies verify that the ratio of negative comments on students’ papers vastly outnumbers positive ones; however, whenever I have looked at my own completed and commented on work, though the quantity of negative comments may technically outnumber praise, I never assumed they scaled heavier than positive—at least not automatically. If comments were a currency, I always thought positive traded higher. I also always took sections of no comments to be neutral to positive, and the positive comments, which were usually more global, though some instructors liked to point out a line here and there, always to point out something above and beyond. My question then is simple: does anyone else think more in line with this? If so, how did you come to think less negatively about these comments despite the preponderance of them?

I like how Pat Benalof makes “no apologies” for judging a paper in relation to “all other papers” read. More often than not, I take this approach as well, though probably more to a micro scale, partially judging a paper based on not all the papers I have read (though perhaps still doing this subconsciously as a foundation) but to the rest of the class’ assignments. Often times I see the papers in a spectrum and if many of them are “bad,” I see it as a reflection of whether I taught the material well or not. How do we then bring rubrics into the equation of grading, especially in relation to a more holistic and/or progress-based type of evaluation?

QQC 7/18/17

1. In response to Belanoff’s paper, I wanted to ask: How would you come up with standards with your students? And do you think they’ll be more or less likely to understand and abide by them if you do create them together? Finally, how much trust do you put in students to create the system they’ll be evaluated on?

2. Thinking about Daiker’s paper, I tend to find it way easier to write constructive criticism than to write constructive praise. Mostly my praise sounds broad, brief, or ingenuine. Constructive praise is not something I’ve often seen (except in the form of “this is good, but…”) or been trained in, and I feel like when I do write it, it comes off as forced. Does anyone have any strategies for writing useful praise that sounds genuine? Especially for students new to college writing, who are bound to produce (overall) some sup-par writing.

QQ 7/18

From Daiker: “They wrote a total of 864 comments on the essays, but only 51 of them were comments of praise. This means that 94% of the comments focused on what students had done poorly or incorrectly, only 6% on what had been done well.”

If writing in the classroom becomes more collaborative and student driven is this negativity likely to change organically? If the instructor becomes less of a prescriptive force in the classroom in general it makes sense to me that the grading process would follow suit. Doesn't it make sense to model the collaborative, writing centered process through thoughtful teacher feedback on papers rather than just symbolic corrections?



From Elbow: “Another useful option is to make a strategic retreat from a wholly negative position. That is, I sometimes do a bit of ranking even on individual papers, using two "bottom-line" grades: H and U for "Honors" and "Unsatisfactory."


He goes on to explain the ways in which he justifies this kind-of ranking (“at the moment, anyway”) This felt like whiplash to me. He's just spent pages and pages tearing down the validity of ranking, and now he is re-packaging it and giving it back to us. Did anyone else feel like his “bit of ranking” was problematic to the rest of his argument? Why do this kind-of ranking rather than find another way to communicate with the students about their performance throughout the semester?

QQC4

Daiker focuses on ensuring that you, as the teacher, try to bring in positive feedback as you go through student papers to grade, either by using a gimmick or making a conscious choice to do things in a certain order or amount (i.e. for every 3 negative there’s a positive),but how might we bring that into the classroom setting as well, specifically in terms of peer workshops or collaborations between students?

Elbow brings in that “grades and holistic scores give too much encouragement to those students who score high-making them too apt to think they are already fine-and too little encouragement to those students who do badly” (397). I think this is a vital idea, as we often focus on how grades/negative feedback can make students apprehensive (to use Daiker’s term), but this idea of the high achiever as fraud is crucial; we can’t ignore either end of the spectrum. How might we use some of the methods Elbow brings forward (i.e. freewriting, portfolios, evaluation-free zones, etc) to help high acheivers remain focused and feel like writers and not frauds? How might we grade them in relation to their own progress and not simply checking the boxes and putting an A on the paper? 

QQC

1. Define "teacher talk" (Straub 275) in your own terms, and offer advice on how to avoid it.

2. Propose a "publication" (Elbow 402) plan that you could use in an ENC course. Provide details.

QQC

1. Was your experience as a teacher or student with praise similar as the ones described in "Learning to Praise"? How do you plan to deal with praise as a teacher?

2. Do you believe grading to be an issue in writing classes as Pat Belanoff pointed out? Do you think there is such a thing as objective grading in writing classes?

QQC 7/18/17

1) In the article about grading, Belanoff seems to make a really compelling point in favor of portfolio style grading. As future teaches who have (presumably) come from a grade-by-project background, how do you all feel about portfolio grading? What do you imagine are the pros and cons?

2) Perhaps this is a rudimentary comment and question, but how do you all feel about the distribution of praise v. critique for composition classes? I personally would rather know how I could improve than be needless complimented, personally. How do you all feel?

QQC 4

In “Teacher Response as Conversation: More than Casual Talk, an Exploration,” Richard Straub argues that instructors should give student feedback as if they are readers or collaborators rather than editors. Towards the essay’s conclusion, he accounts for the additional workload involved in providing these types of responses. Can you think of any technologies that might assist in alleviating this burden or enhance the quality of more minimalist written feedback?

In “Ranking, Evaluating, and Liking: Sorting Out Three Forms of Judgement,” Peter Elbow confronts the complications that arise from grading and (sometimes) evaluation. He also lingers on how to find likable qualities in a student’s work. I found myself nodding along, because my favorite instructors practice this. However, I think about my own narrow aesthetic preferences especially in creative writing, and sometimes I can’t find something to like about a piece of writing that I know is good or has potential—or maybe I can but I don’t have the mind to give feedback that would help the student enhance the piece. If you also struggle with this, how do you plan to account for those biases and blind spots once you enter the classroom?  

QQC 4 - Emily Scott

1. After reading Elbow's article on portfolio style grading, I really want to try and implement that in my classroom in the Spring. I like his idea of giving the students a contract so they focus less on writing for and to their instructor, and more on writing for themselves. However, are there any benefits of paper by paper grading that I am missing besides students being able to track their progress more completely?

2. What did you all think of Daiker's idea that we should praise students more in their essays? I am a big advocate of this but sometimes I feel as if I may go a bit overboard in praise. Daiker, however, does not seem to think there is such a thing as "too much" praise as long as it is coupled with critique. How do we find the balance in our feedback as instructors?

- Emily

QQC Kristy July 18

In Elbow’s text, he advocates for an “evaluation free zone” like freewriting for 10 minutes that is private or writing that is shared but not graded. I see my teaching mentor doing something similar in the class I am interning for and I find the students engage in writing enthusiastically. I am considering this as something to go in my own class. How do you all feel about encouraging students to write without fear of judgement or grades but for the sake of exercising the act of writing in the class? Do you think that it has any value? If so, is it risk taking? Is it positive? Negative use of class time? Thoughts?

Daiker argues that students who receive praise in lieu of comments about what all they did wrong on their papers significantly improve their writing. Do you feel like you are a negative commenter or a positive guider? Have you had experiences with professors who only comment negatively? What about positively? And did the way they respond to your work make you work harder or not care because you did not feel you could improve? 

QQC4

1) What was your favorite model to replace ranking in classes--(e)portfolio, analytic grids, or contract grading?
 I'm pretty interested in contract grading myself, because you can make the class kind of like a fun board game in which there are a variety of ways to get the grade you want, and you plan your own strategy for how to go about achieving the grade you want, or at least trying to.

2) Do you think that replacing ranking in classes sends the wrong message to the student?
 I hate that I feel this way, but I kind of worry that students will see that and say "oh, this is that kind of teacher" or something(?) Not that I want to be the kind of teacher that is tough-as-nails or sees writing as an objective action or grades grammar too harshly. I also don't want students to see it as a free pass and thus not work as hard and thus not do as well and thus not understood what went wrong.

7.18.17 QQC

1. Overall I appreciate the idea of responding to student papers in an informal manner so that comments take on more of a conversational role. I think this is far less intimidating to students, and may make it more likely that they will actually read the comments. However, while grading my first set of student papers, I did notice some major, recurring grammar issues that even led to reader confusion (e.g. inconsistent tense and run-on sentences). In the context of being the relaxed reader who still draws attention to global issues (in a more nondirective manner), how do we address the more detail-oriented issues like grammar?

2. I loved Elbow’s suggestions for evaluation-free zones. I do wonder though, considering how we have discussed so much already how important revision will be to our classrooms, if something like Elbow’s three-week period of evaluation-free writing would be useful in such a context? I’m guessing we’re not allowed to implement this idea in our course anyway, but regarding the merits/potential issues linked to this system (which I really like), I thought it might be limiting revisions-wise. And does this perhaps give too little credit to teacher evaluation, which I have personally found very helpful for me in the development of my own writing, and which I think is necessary, at least for the students whose work I have seen during my internship the last weeks?