Class Plan, Fri, 4/16

1) Baseball (Wed, 4/21) and books (Rewriting)

2) Fine-tune Wikipedia pages on Writing Process

3) Draft CCCC Proposal

4) Revisions due by Wed, 4/28

Class Plan, Wed, 4/14

Group Work on Wikipedia: Writing Process

Some Resources

Online Bedford Biblio for Teachers of Writing (2003)

Comp Pile

Class Plan, Fri, 4/09

1) Proposed Schedule

Wed, 4/14: Workshop Wiki entries

Fri, 4/16: Draft CCCC Panel proposal

Wed, 4/21: Durham Bulls vs. Charlotte, DBAP, 1:00 PM

Wed, 4/28: Revisions due

2) Wikipedia: Figures, Books, Concepts

For Entries on Figures

Bio

Positions

Bibliography

Influence/legacy

For Entries on Books

Author Bio

Summary: Overview and Chapters

Reception: Reviews, Citations, etc.

For Entries on Concepts/Terms

Definition(s)

Similar terms

Key uses

3) CCCC CFP: What might the hook of an MAT panel be?

4) Discuss CCC 61.3 and r8

5) For Wed, 4/14: Print out copies of old Wikipedia page you are working on; be ready to talk us through the changes or additions you have made.

6) For Fri, 4/16: Ideas for title and topic of panel, and title and topic of your 12-15 minute talk.

Class Plan, Wed, 4/07

1) Discuss Norton as a portrait of the field of composition studies

Some keywords from the preface and intro

Terms of Value

friendly

engaged

curious

monitorial

open

Characteristics of field

repeated topics

diverse methods

multiple genres

varied sources

How well do these keywords describe the work you’ve read? What other terms might you add to the list? Which terms might you revise or delete?

2) Please post r8 by Thurs, 4/08, at 5:00 PM.

3) Come to class on Fri, 4/09, with two good ideas for a Wikipedia page (new or revised) related to the readings you’ve done for this course, and please also be ready to talk about the issues you see in CCC 61.3.

r8: Looking Ahead, CCC 61.3

At this point in the semester, you have a working sense of the current best practices in teaching academic writing (Elbow, Graff, Harris et al.), as well as how the study of writing has emerged as an academic field (Berlin, Norton).

For the final reading for this course, I’d like you to take a look at the most recent issue (Feb 2010) of CCC: College Composition and Communication, the flagship journal in the field. As it happens, this issue is the first from a new editor of CCC, Kathleen Yancey—and so we can read it as in part reflecting her sense of where the field is now and where it needs to head in the next few years.

So . . . what do the articles collected in  CCC 61.3 tell you about what  now of people working in writing and rhetoric are thinking about now? What themes or issues do you recognize from your previous reading? What new issues seem to be emerging? Do any of these emerging issues strike you as particularly surprising or interesting?

Please post your response by 5:00 Pm on Thursday, April 8.

r7: Norton Book of Composition Studies (2)

Please read the following essays from The Norton Book of Composition Studies:

Lynn Bloom [945]

Peck, Flower, and Higgins  [1097]

Cynthia Selfe [1163]

Kathleen Yancey [1186]

James Gee [1293]

Lisa Delpit [1311]

Diana George [1429]

Russel Durst [1655]

This series of pieces updates the “Best of Comp” list into the 1990s and 2000s. As we discuss this second set of articles, I’d like us to think about what new issues seem to be emerging, what concerns continue on from previous years, and what questions seem to lose a sense of urgency.

And I’d like us to prepare for that discussion in much the same way we did last week. I am thus attaching a slightly revised form of the r7_worksheet we used in class on Wed, 3/17. For r7, please fill out this worksheet (you can type directly into the boxes on the table) and post it to the course Google Group by Fri, 3/31, at 1:00 PM. I’ll make copies for us to use in class later that afternoon.

The three categories I’d like you to use in making notes on the Norton pieces are

• Take Away: What is the main point or key insight you want to remember from this piece?
• Quote: What is the most memorable phrasing in the piece?
• Context: When and where was the article written? Who is the author responding, building on, or arguing with?

Again, your notes can be brief, so long as you can use them as effective prompts to talking about the pieces in class.

Again, please post your completed worksheet to our Google Group by Fri, 3/30, 1:00 PM.

r6: Norton Book of Composition Studies

Please read the following essays from The Norton Book of Composition Studies:

Janet Emig [228]

Richard Braddock [271]

Nancy Sommers [323]

Mina Shaughnessy [387]

Joseph Williams [414]

Maxine Hairston [439]

Linda Flower and John Hayes [467]

Patrick Hartwell [563]

Mike Rose [586]

David Bartholomae [605]

I’ve selected these ten essays as a kind of “Best of Comp” list—pieces from the 1970s and 80s that I’d expect any serious  writing teacher to be familiar with. Working from this list, then, I’d like you to hazard some thoughts as to what was on the minds of people studying and teaching writing at that time.

Do you notice any  issues that (almost) everyone seems to feel are important—terms or concepts or values that several writers return to? Conversely, do you see any recurring points of disagreementamong these writers?

In your response, try to point to one area of significant agreement and one area of conflict. We’ll then see if, as a group, we can use these essays to form a picture of the field of composition studies as it emerged in the 1970s and 1980s.

Please post your response by Tues, 3/16, at 5:00 PM.