Research Idea - Snapshot of WAC at SWIC

What about a project to examine the messages students are getting about writing, from disciplines and departments across the curriculum? A project that examines how writing is taught in departments outside the English department? This would be primarily a descriptive study intended to take snapshot of how students are taught writing across the disciplines, looking for ways in which certain principles are reinforced, how others take precedence within certain disciplines, and the ways in which students might be confused by the messages they receive in their two years at SWIC.

How?

You need a core of teachers willing to allow a researcher access to their classes when writign assignments are discussed, copies of the writing assignments after tehy are graded, and interveiws with both students and teachers during the entire process. Interviews with teachers as they design and administer the assignments, and interviews with students as they prepare to write the assignments and maybe reflective memos after they have completed them. Maybe something akin to Jane's action research group.

But why would professors volunteer for such an event? What's in it for them?

Fieldnotes -- 4/10/06

ENG 101-17

COL Writing Studio - pop open the calendar and let's take a look at that.

Read three papers, write at least 3 comments on each of the papers -- Revised version of the essay due on Monday.

Sentence-Level concerns

At this point in the semester, look at sentence-level concerns. Began the semester by looking at more global issues, now, time to look at lower-order concerns.

Reflective Essays
Final Portfolio
Comment


What does the little (S) and (E) mean on the calendar?

It means the start and end date. Use the same entries for TR and MWF classes.

Make sure your comments deal with content, and that you support your opinion.

Prof and student discussing Wolf's Beauty Myth. Prof suggested student read it in a lecture, and student picked up the book and began to read it.

"Cool."

The room is quiet. I see a student looking at MySpace.com, looking at profiles, sending messages to friends. Check, 2 students. Student next to me is reading. Young man across from me looking intently at cpu screen.

A few of the female students are talking to one another. Both students in their 20's.

"Can we comment on our own paper? Like putting my ideas into comment so I can refer to them later?"

"I'd rather you guys commented on your own papers."

Jerry finishes his mini-lecture, covering the outline for the rest of the semester. Students will finish commenting on their peers' essays, then revise, then put up the best of the best for peers to comment on, in preparation for the final portfolio, which is due the last day of finals week.

Students seem to understand the process, and they have very few questions about the calendar or what's expected of them. This seems to be a process they have repeated numerous times.

People are not talking, but very quiet, and seem to be working on something.

Click. click. click. Tap. tap. tap.

Busy, but reserved. No chaos. The room feels relaxed. I see two students working in Comment, a peer feedback program published by Bedford/St. Martin's. Students are able to click on a word within a peers text, a popup window appears, and in that window, annotate the text with ease.

4 students on MySpace. Funny, I have a student who is writing an essay on MySpace, and she quotes a professor who claims MySpace in the number one barrier to student learning in her computer classes because she can not wrestle their attention away from MySpace.

It seems like this could be something that could be harnessed for educational use. I know that MySpace is largely dominated by teen culture, an emphasis on hyper-sexuality, music and photos, but maybe an educator could work with the imperative students feel to read and contribute to MySpace?

5 Students.

This class, an afternoon class, has 16 students in it, 7 females and 8 males, and all seem to be traditional age students, and, from what I can tell, only one minority student, a young woman who appears to be of other-than-European descent, although I'm not sure how I would characterize her heritage.

Student checking cell phone.

Old technology versus new.

Cell phones are becoming more and more the digital hubs that computers once were. Cell phones hold many of the keys that computers once did. We receive e-mail, text messages, have calendars, news updates, all received via cellular connections.

6 students. MySpace rules.

Student with headphones.

Professor sits at desk, writing furious comments on a paper. Head down. Lost in thought. Student approaches, asking . . .

"Do my comments show on your computer? I want to make sure my comments appear?"

"Yep. There here. It's a cache thing. If you hit refresh a few times they'll appear."

The atmosphere is very relaxed.

What do I say? In the two writing classes, not much has been happening to observe. Students are working on revising their own writing, or providing feedback to their peers to help them revise their own writing. In each case, the emphasis is on revising, in both basic and college-level writing course. There is consistency, repeated messages, over and over. Revise. Revise. Revise.

A student gets up to leave a little early, 13 minutes early. We're supposed to care about these things, but prof doesn't bat an eye. It's his decision, if he wants to leave early, then he takes responsibility for that decision. It seems like responsibility sits solely within the students' laps. It is their decision whether to surf MySpace, or work on their own writing, and they will make that choice.

Another student gets up to leave. Both are male. Traditional age students.

2 female students seems to do most of the talking. The talking is hished so I cant pick any of it out, or really tell whether it is class-related. I think I might have heard, "I need a cigarette."

3rd student leaves, male, 9 minutes early. Then a female considers. She looks at teacher's desk, over at me, wondering if it is safe to leave. The educational mores are strong and she decides to stay a bit longer, until the end, I suppose.

The class ends a few minutes early. Students restart cpu's, grab books, head for the door.

Teaching is Telling . . . NOT!

Gloria Ladson-Billings (1994)details her observations of four different teachers. Three of the teachers are experienced, and demonstrate the culturally relevant teaching practices she argues for in her article, and, the other, a student-teacher, does not.

Ladson-Billings' research is completed within the much larger context of literacy education. The literacy of which we speak here is not limited to simple reading and writing skills. When the author speaks of literacy, she is talking about the knowing, understand, and developing an ability to negotiate the complex cultural waters of formal education, the kind that is required by law -- educational literacy.

Teaching is not Telling

In the end, Ladson-Billings concludes teaching someone something, fostering literacy to the greatest degree, is not the same as telling someone something. This is such a simple observation, but one that is full of implications. Telling someone something activates a very specific paradigm, one in which the authority rests solely with the teller. They are the knower, professing their knowledge to the uninitiated, ignorant masses.

Such a stance creates an almost antagonistic relationship between the teacher and student, as well as between student and subject matter. Ladson-Billings argues that teaching means extending, moving "students to newer learning after establishing what they know and are able to do" (p. 125). Walsh, the student teacher the author observes, makes the mistake of not connecting the material he is attempting to teach to his students' prior knowledge, and because of this, the students refuse to invest themselves in the process, and, in fact, openly rebel against the process as it is presented to them by listening to headphones during instruction, looking out the window, or poking one another with pencils.

In teaching students to read, one of Ladson-Billings' participants, asks students "what they thought the text meant and what connections they could make between the text and their own lives" (p. 124). Such a question, and a paradigm for instruction, moves the authority for the text and the material learned beyond the teacher herself, and grants student authority over the meaning being made during the lesson. Students are gifted with authority, and this gift compels them to invest themselves in the activity.

Ladson-Billings also addresses the atmosphere in a culturally relevant classroom. She argues the "focus of the classroom must be instructional" (p. 124). She argues that student must come to understand the dynamic AND serious nature of the learning process, where "instruction is foremost" (p. 124). The experienced teachers in Ladson-Billings's study use a number of methods to send this message to students. For Rossi, her high-energy, fast-paced classroom leave little time or opportunity for off-task behaviors. Lewis turns necessary reprimands into teachable moments, while Devereaux insists that the reading period is "sancrosanct." In each of these cases, a serious message is sent to student regarding the expectations placed upon them in a learning environment.

Ladson-Billings approaches her research from a critical stance. She addresses issues of power, knowledge, and politics in her research, and argues forcefully for legitimizing students' own knowledge in her assessment of culturally-relevant teaching. In fact, she finds: (1) "when students are treated as competent, they are likely to demonstrate compentence" (p. 124); (2)when students are scaffolded, they can "move from what they know to what they need to know" (p. 125). Both of these findings ask educators to reevaluate their conceptions of student knowledge, and who, ultimately, owns the keys to a mastery of knowledge and skills.