Week 5: Ideas and Elements for my IRW Unit Plan

 

 Course Theme: 

Poverty, Inequality, and the American Dream

Course Focus and Approach:

My IRW course would be built around the broader theme of “Poverty, Inequality, a

nd the American Dream.” Throughout the entire semester, I would like to move students from reading and writing about personal narratives in Unit One, to reading a longer work of expository journalism in Unit Two, to reading a short novel in Unit 3.  Over the course of these three units, I would draw upon each of the three models of reading that McCormick discusses: cognitive, expressivist, and socio-cultural. Ultimately, the course aims to get students to analyze the socio-cultural context of inequality in America and to critically examine their own experiences within this context. I believe that students need to learn critical reading strategies offered by a cognitive approach, as well as understand the possibilities of putting forth multiple interpretations (emphasized by an expressivist approach), and therefore I would try to integrate all three models into each unit.

Specific Readings and Writings in each unit:

Unit One:

Students would begin the class by reading brief news articles on poverty and inequality in America, examining theories of why inequality is growing worse and why social mobility has stagnated; they would then discuss how this situation affects the realization of the American Dream. I would then have students read Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle, to analyze Walls’ story of her childhood in poverty; the class would discuss Walls’ belief that with individual initiative and perseverance, poverty can be overcome in America, and the American Dream can be achieved.

 

Strategies I would use to promote “active reading” in this unit:

• ·      Students would preview, predict, and write about first impressions and inferences before reading the text.

• ·      Students would compose a portrait of themselves as readers and writers, focusing on what kinds of texts they enjoy reading and the areas in which they have struggled, and on their feelings about the writing process. This “literacy narrative” might also ask students to discuss their primary and secondary languages, prior English classes they have taken, and details about how they have evolved into the readers and writers they are today.

• ·        I would try to “activate schema” before we begin a new text, to elicit what the students already know about the broader topic and to establish a context for their upcoming analysis of the assigned text. In particular, I would have students free-write about their ideas about poverty in America and the American Dream, asking if they believe that the American Dream is attainable today. I might also ask them to interview one or two people who have immigrated to America to compare the responses from the interview with their own experiences.

•       During the reading process, I would draw upon Van Woerkum’s idea that a reader must pay attention to what “is triggered” by the text (269). Making ongoing inferences and analyzing these inferences would help a student focus on what is being triggered as they read.

• ·       I would ask students to practice annotation and to keep a journal (one in dialectical format and one that contains more informal thoughts). In the dialectical journal, students will respond to and interpret key quotes and bring the quotes to class as a basis for discussion. In the informal journal, they will record their ideas and questions as they read, and these can basically be “first impressions” rather than extensively developed ideas; this informal journal assignment is intended to support and validate students’ initial thoughts and reactions.

•        After the reading process, I would have students assess the accuracy of their initial predictions and inferences. 

Students would then develop ideas from their initial free-write about their own experiences with poverty and/or inequality (from the pre-reading stage) into a longer essay that compares this personal narrative with an analysis of Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle, comparing their own experience with Walls’. This would be the focus of Essay 1, the first formal out-of-class essay. Students would peer-review one another’s drafts, have the option to revise the first draft for a higher grade on the final draft, and keep a grammar and vocabulary log along the way, to keep track of grammar errors and new vocabulary words; they would submit these logs with the final essay draft and with their journal responses. After submitting this work, students would reflect in a brief in-class essay on the reading and writing processes, focusing on what worked well and areas they would like to improve on in the next unit.

 

Units Two and Three of this course would follow a similar trajectory, but would introduce readings from different genres. For Unit Two, the students would read Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco’s Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which is both a work of investigative journalism and a graphic novel that looks into four national “sacrifice areas” in the United States, places where corporate capitalism has decimated the environment and communities and has caused residents to live in unrelenting poverty. Because the book takes an overtly political, Marxist view of the degradations of corporate capitalism, I would supplement this reading with texts that highlight the benefits of corporate approaches to poverty and/or that see poverty in America as an individual, rather than systemic problem (perhaps from a “think tank” like the Cato Institute or Heritage Foundation). I would have students assess the tensions between the perspectives in these texts and identify their own views in relation to them. This would draw upon the “literary” and “general” repertoires of students, and may create “reading situations in which a tension between repertoires exists” (McCormick 88), which could prompt students to a deeper understanding of themselves and the course content. Essay 2 would ask students to compare Days of Destruction with one of these supplemental texts, examining the gaps and contradictions between these two perspectives on poverty in America. I would also have students write a Difficulty Paper as they read Days of Destruction, to reflect on their own resistances to and questions about the text’s polemical style and premises.

 

Since the topic for my course is overtly political, I would like to integrate another assignment along the way (perhaps before Essay 2 is due) that gets students to examine their own political viewpoints and take a position on the subject. This might be an advocacy/solution paper, in which students focus on a point made in the reading and explicitly advocate for something to be done about it  (i.e., they could look at the public health problems and ecological devastation produced by coal mining in West Virginia when reading Days of Destruction, and argue for a solution to this problem). This would introduce students to the rhetorical mode of argumentation and encourage them to develop argumentative and persuasive writing skills, skills which can be transferred to other contexts beyond the class itself.

 

Finally, in Unit Three students would read Sherman Alexie’s short novel Flight, which explores the experiences of an orphaned Native American teenager as he time-travels through American history, and eventually discovers the need to see the world from different perspectives and through new eyes. The novel’s focus on our common humanity, even as it emphasizes systemic racism and poverty, blends the emphasis on individual autonomy in Walls’ The Glass Castle with the view of overwhelming systemic inequality in Hedges’ Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, providing a kind of “middle ground” between the two other texts. It also introduces students to a new genre, that of imaginative fiction, and Alexie’s humorous, ironic style can help to lighten up the mood of an otherwise grim subject.

After completing this final novel, I would try to trigger the “activation of new reading” (through research assignments related to the final synthesis essay and connections that students make to other texts assigned in the class). At this point the course would grant students more choices in their final research project as they find and analyze one or two sources on their own, and synthesize these sources with Alexie’s Flight. Because Flight draws upon myriad themes, the opportunities for research are very open; students could research, among other topics: the racial dimensions of poverty, the experience of Native Americans who are experiencing ongoing forms of colonialism on reservations, and the struggles of foster children in America. Because Sherman Alexie is a popular and humorous public figure, I would also incorporate interviews with him on YouTube, along with poems he has written, and relevant songs and video clips related to the issues the novel raises.

Finally, students would submit all of their work at the end of the semester in a portfolio that also contains a reflective essay in which they examine their growth as readers and writers over the course of the semester.

Given that my course focuses on the socio-cultural context of poverty and inequality, I would try to avoid teaching the course from an overtly political angle. Rather, I would like to get students to see how different texts are interpreted differently according to a reader’s cultural context, and then ask what role each particular text plays in today’s society. I would try to get students to make connections between the texts and contemporary society, to see their relevance in light of current debates over poverty and inequality in America.

 

Week 4: McCormick's Three Reading Approaches

McCormick begins by criticizing the lack of dialogue between the various disciplines involved in theorizing about reading practice and pedagogy, so that “work in reading remains fragmented and its transformative capacities limited” (5); this is due in part to the “low status” that reading occupies within academic institutions.

1. Cognitive: The cognitive reading approach is an information-processing model that regards reading primarily as a hierarchy of skills, focusing mostly on reading “comprehension” (16) and the reader’s mental capacities, as opposed to the social context that influences both readers and texts. This model is based upon a view of the text as the sole source of meaning and privileges an objective, “correct” interpretation that in turn ignores both the reader’s personal response and the social and cultural conditions that shape the process of interpretation. The cognitive, objectivist model posits a “universal” meaning of the text in all situations and contexts. Even so, McCormick notes that there is potential to be found in the cognitive model’s emphasis on drawing on students’ prior knowledge/schema, but that this schema does not get applied to social or cultural contexts, and therefore fails to “locate the reader as a subject-in-history” (18). Also, schema theory as it has often been practiced assumes that students must passively accept from teachers the “appropriate” background knowledge that will lead to a “correct” understanding of a text, rather than seeing that prior knowledge can reconstruct a text, depending on a student’s particular social and cultural conditioning.

2. Expressivist: The expressivist model privileges the reader’s life experience in the reading process. While expressivist approaches challenge the cognitive model’s location of all meaning within a “universal” text, they ultimately fail to present a viable alternative to the cognitive model because they lack a theory about what the text actually is. The focus on the individual reader (most notably in reader-response approaches to texts) provides an important counterpoint to the cognitive model, but ignores the reality of social and cultural conditions in the production and interpretation of texts. This approach is individualistic and student-centered, focusing primarily on the role of the reader and allowing for multiple interpretations as opposed to a universal, “correct” meaning. Nonetheless, McCormick finds that expressivist approaches would be more effective if they drew connections between personal engagement and the social world that informs both texts and readers. It is often difficult not to fall into the trap of “relativism” (viewing all readings as equally valid) when assessing the worth of various readings according to an expressivist model, and this approach may not prepare students for critical reading in other contexts (47). This model also often focuses on reading (more privileged) literary texts and not other kinds of texts, such as expository writings. McCormick sees potential for expressivist models to break free of their individualistic focus through connections with cultural studies. Unfortunately, many teachers in the United States continue to think of reader-response/expressivist pedagogy as the only alternative to cognitive/objectivist pedagogy.

3. Socio-cultural: The socio-cultural model comes closest to realizing McCormick’s goal of getting students “to inquire into and understand the interconnectedness of social conditions and the reading and writing practices of a culture” (7). This model conceives of literacy as a social process that takes place within a web of social relationships and assumptions. This approach breaks with the lack of social context in both the cognitive and expressivist models, focusing instead on getting students to “analyse [social] conditions and practices, and to possess the critical and political awareness to take action within and against them” (49). McCormick warns against developing pedagogies based on this model that fall into the trap of making students feel that their responses are utterly powerless or worthless in the face of larger social forces, and instead advocates finding a balance between personal response and social critique, “balanced between determinism and autonomy” (60). McCormick examines notions of “the reader” in cultural studies as a viable solution, noting that “the reader/viewer has come to be regarded as an active, potentially resistant agent” (52). This model also echoes aspects of an integrated reading-writing approach in its ability to break down distinctions between production and reception and see “reception as a form of production” (57), drawing upon a notion of the “active reader.”

*A question: Which particular strategies and activities would enable students to “learn to analyse how texts are likewise culturally constructed, how they are produced in particular sets of social circumstances and reproduced differently in different circumstances . . . [and] use such cultural and historical analysis to develop and defend critical positions of their own" (9)?

   

Week 4: Thoughts on the blogging process

As a writer in my own blog, a “good” blog posting gets right to the point, answering the question being asked as clearly and directly as possible. At the same time, the blog will use interesting and colorful language in order to engage the reader and inspire them to keep reading. In order to develop my my own thinking, I might first peruse a few other students’ blogs to see how my classmates are addressing the assignment, and I usually find that I learn something valuable from reading other blogs (for example, I was impressed by how one of our classmates uses visual images from popular culture to emphasize points in the written narrative, and I hope to incorporate more visual images in my own blog in the future). I also try to take time prior to writing to be introspective, in order to discover my authentic perspective on a subject, and this might require wracking my memory to recall a past event that played a significant role in shaping my thinking. It would also help to get clear guidelines about how in-depth/detailed our blog posts should be, because I think I’ve probably been spending too much time crafting my blog responses (as if they were formal out-of-class essays rather than informal thoughts), so it would be great to know precisely what kind of response is being looked for.

As a reader, what makes for a good blog posting is similar to what makes for good writing: straightforward, engaging, and eloquent language, as well as thought-provoking ideas that help me to extend and develop my own thinking. What is most useful is when I encounter ideas and perspectives that I had not yet considered, which help me to view a subject from a different lens or with a new eye. Anything that gets me to see the topic in a new way works well for me!

I would like to receive honest comments based on thoughtful reasoning and constructive criticism. Flattery or exaggerated praise is not necessary or helpful; I’d rather hear exactly how my ideas strike my readers, as long as they are framed constructively. I would also like to give others honest, authentic feedback based upon my initial impressions and prior experiences. Informal/conversational language is fine, and usually creates a more intimate communication experience.

I would prefer that a minimal amount of blog reading and commenting be required; I don’t think that I will have the time to read each student’s blog, let alone to comment on each of them (although if I had the time I would like to do so). So I hope that the requirements for blog reading and commenting are not an extensive part of the homework assignments each week, as long as the reading continues to require the same workload as it has. Breaking into small groups and following a few classmates’ blogs would work well, I think, and would be less overwhelming because it would allow us to offer more focused feedback.

Hmmm, I’m not entirely sure about how blogs should be evaluated; would a rubric work well in this situation? Maybe if a short rubric were created, it would help to clarify the expectations for blog posts. I think qualities such as clarity, relevance to the topic, and ability to engage the reader are very important and should be part of a rubric to evaluate blogs. But ultimately, as long as the blogs are completed on time and answer the question(s) being asked, I think that full credit should be received.

Week 3: Course for developmental reading/writing students

If I could create a course for helping under-prepared students during their first semester of college, I would design an integrated reading and writing course, one that incorporates activities that promote a metacognitive awareness of reading and writing processes through self-reflection. This course would utilize strategies for “students [to] come to read as writers and write as readers” (Goen and Gillotte-Tropp, “Integrating Reading and Writing” (99), in order to recognize the interrelated and interconnected aspects of reading and writing. I have recently worked with a few of my colleagues in the Foothill College English Department on designing a new, accelerated pathway for developmental English students that is explicitly modeled on the IRW courses described by Goen-Salter and Gillotte Tropp in their article “Integrating Reading and Writing,” and based on this involvement, I have become convinced that an IRW approach can effectively meet the needs of developmental English students, boosting their abilities as both readers and writers. I am guided by Goen-Salter’s point that “better writers tend to be better readers, better writers tend to read more than poorer writers, and better readers tend to produce more mature prose than poorer readers” (“Critiquing the Need to Eliminate Remediation” 84).

My course would emphasize “active reading,” drawing upon the strategies outlined in Van Woerkum’s article, “The Active Reader.” In particular, I would incorporate pre-reading strategies such as previewing, predicting, and writing about first impressions and inferences before students read a text. I would also ask students to compose a portrait of themselves as readers and writers, focusing on what kinds of texts they enjoy reading and the areas in which they have struggled, and on their feelings about the writing process. This “literacy narrative” might also ask students to discuss their primary and secondary languages, prior English classes they have taken, and details about how they have evolved into the readers and writers they are today. I would try to “activate schema” before we begin a new text, to elicit what the students already know about the broader topic and to establish a context for their upcoming analysis of the assigned texts.

During the reading process, I would draw upon Van Woerkum’s idea that a reader must pay attention to what “is triggered” by the text (269). Making ongoing inferences and analyzing these inferences would help a student focus on what is being triggered as they read. To this end, I would also ask students to practice annotation and to keep an ongoing journal (one in dialectical format and one that contains more informal thoughts). In the dialectical journal, students will respond to and interpret key quotes and bring the quotes to class as a basis for discussion. In the informal journal, they will record their ideas and questions as they read, and these can basically be “first impressions” rather than extensively developed ideas; this informal journal assignment is intended to support and validate students’ initial thoughts and reactions. And based on an IRW approach, I would assign Goen-Salter’s “Difficulty Paper,” to get students to critically assess the roadblocks in their reading process and to make an Action Plan for addressing these issues.

After the reading process, I would help students trigger the “activation of new reading” (through research assignments related to a final essay and connections that students make to other texts assigned in the class), and I would have students assess the accuracy of their initial predictions and inferences. The course would start by assigning each text but would move toward granting students more choices, through a final research essay in which they find and analyze one or two sources on their own, and synthesize these sources with an assigned reading. I may also include a book report assignment that asks students to find and present information on a book of their choice that is related to the course topic.

For the written essays, we will practice the skill of timed in-class essay writing along with writing longer out-of-class essays that must be revised. The first essay will draw upon personal narrative, asking students to make connections between their personal experience and one text. The second essay will focus on comparison and contrast between two readings and will be a more objective, analytical (traditional academic) essay. The third essay will be a research project that synthesizes two sources found through original research with at least one reading from class. As we discussed in English 709 class, I would allow the first in-class essay to be the first draft of the first formal out-of-class essay and would provide comments on the in-class essay that students could use when composing their longer essay. I would focus on providing feedback that is focused on content and organization and less on the “errors” in sentence-level issues and grammar. All essays will relate to the broader course theme, which might be “California Dreams and Realities” or “Poverty, Inequality, and the American Dream” (I have taught both of these courses at Foothill College, but have not incorporated an IRW approach into either of them yet).

In terms of the role of grammar instruction in the course, I would hold off on grammar drills and focus primarily on more generative aspects of writing, including sentence-building strategies like appositives and verbal phrases, to show that English is not just about grammar drills. On the day an essay is due, I would lecture on one key grammar/sentence-level topic (such as run-on sentences or fragments) and have the students look through their essays for this problem and correct it before handing in the essay; I believe this would be a focused and more gradual way to introduce grammar rules into the class, which would also limit grammar to a more peripheral role in the class.

Specific activities that I would assign over the semester include:

·      As students practice annotation, they will meet in groups to collectively annotate one key passage, and then present their group’s annotations to the class, to promote discussion of what a strong annotation looks like. This activity also gets students to agree on what constitutes a strong annotation, so that they learn that annotation is a selective process involving careful consideration.

·      Students will engage in debates over issues in the readings, using their annotated texts as evidence to support their particular positions in the debate.

·      Students will draw comparisons to other texts, to their own lived experiences, and to the world at large throughout the reading process (a Text-Self-World graphic organizer can be used to facilitate this discussion).

·      Students will learn to visually represent the inferences they make during the reading process through drawings, collages, info-graphics, and other creative means of self-expression.

·      Students will be exposed to multimedia materials such as video clips, films, advertisements, songs, and any other source that extends their thinking on the printed texts and brings in new kinds of “texts” for analysis.

·      Students will reflect metacognitively on their reading and writing processes through brief written assignments and in a longer reflective essay at the end of the quarter.

·      Students will participate in at least one formal group presentation that encourages them to take on the role of “teaching” the class about a text and they will be responsible for leading class discussion on that day.

These are my initial thoughts about the design of my IRW course. For all of these assignments and activities, students will be encouraged to work collaboratively in pairs, small groups, and with the whole class. The goal is to establish a comfortable, stimulating, and productive discourse community where students from all backgrounds can participate and where diverse learning styles can be addressed and validated.

Week 3: Summary and Response to Goen-Salter's articles

After you read: Briefly summarize Goen's two articles and respond with any questions or reactions that you have.

First Article Summary: Sugie Goen and Helen Gillotte-Tropp’s “Integrating Reading and Writing: A Response to the Basic Writing ‘Crisis’” describes San Francisco State’s Integrated Reading and Writing program within the context of ongoing administrative attempts to eliminate or severely restrict remediation at the CSU’s. In order to support the need for remedial efforts at the college level, Goen and Gillotte-Tropp claim that the historical tendency to separate reading and writing as distinct processes is a primary contributor to the “basic writing crisis.” In searching for new ways to address administrative attempts to dismantle “remedial” courses, Goen and Gillotte-Tropp developed the innovative IRW program at San Francisco State, “in which instruction in reading and writing is fully integrated, and students’ movement from the margins of the university to its academic center can be appreciably hastened” (91).

The authors cite empirical research showing the links between reading and writing in order to make a strong case for the IRW approach. They note that the administration implemented a mandate to severely reduce the number of incoming remedial students, with the goal of eliminating remediation altogether in the future, and this led to the creation of the IRW program. They point out that before the implementation of the IRW program, many basic writing students would remain at the basic writing level well into their second year of enrollment at San Francisco State University. In response, the authors developed an accelerated program where students could join the mainstream academic community and take college-level English courses within one year.

The IRW system was piloted, found to be successful across the board, and eventually replaced the old (two-tier) system. In the old system, students who scored in the lowest quartile of the English Placement Test were required to complete a full year of developmental-level course work in reading and writing by taking separate courses with different instructors; the authors note that this model is cumbersome and redundant, and that it fails to alleviate the risk of dis-enrollment from the university that would result if the remediation requirement was not completed in one year.

The authors describe the IRW Program in detail, explaining that the program places at-risk students into a single course which explicitly connects reading and writing and moves these students swiftly from the developmental to college level within one year. Successful completion of the course meets both the CSU remediation requirement and SFSU’s first-year written composition requirement, enabling students to complete in one year what previously took three semesters.

The authors go on to explain that from an IRW standpoint, reading is no longer secondary to writing, and students instead “see how the structures, practices, and language of each process can enhance understanding of the other” (94). The authors describe six fundamental principles that guided their thinking about integrated reading and writing: integration, wherein writing contributes to the development of reading, and vice-versa; time, which takes into account that reading and writing skills develop gradually and within supportive communities; development, which sets a slower pace for the learning process that is more conducive to learning; academic membership, so that at-risk students are incorporated into the mainstream academic community more quickly, thereby ending the cycle of remedial failure and removing the punitive aspect of remedial education; sophistication, which recognizes that basic-level writing classes can be as sophisticated as college-level classes by asking students to work on the same projects, such as reading book-length works and conducting original research; and purposeful communication, which places the teaching of grammar and essay-writing into broader contexts, imbuing the learning process with meaning.

The authors explain their objectives for the program, which include: having students read a range of materials and write from a variety of viewpoints, and helping students apply these skills both within and beyond their work at the university; developing a metacognitive perspective of reading and writing, involving developing conscious strategies for self-awareness (KWL+ is an important process for developing metacognitive awareness, and the authors advocate applying it as both a reading and writing strategy); understanding the rhetorical elements of reading and writing, including purpose, audience, and stance; using reading and writing to engage with the world; developing enjoyment and confidence in reading and writing through self-assessment.

The authors then discuss how student outcomes in the pilot IRW courses were compared with that of a control group, beginning in Fall 2001. They conclude that “[a]cross all categories of data, students in the integrated reading/writing program outperformed their counterparts in SFSU’s conventional sequence of basic reading and writing courses” (103). The article ends by calling for more graduate teaching programs to extensively prepare instructors to teach integrated reading and writing and for administrative policy decisions to take into account curriculum, pedagogy, and composition theory in the future.

Responses/Questions:

• ·      When the authors conclude that “any postsecondary instruction in reading and writing is de-facto remedial and, as such, vulnerable to political and educational forces aimed at its removal” (91), are they also referring to college-level composition (what is called “transfer-level composition” at a community college)?

• ·      The fact that the IRW program accelerates student completion of both remedial and college-level composition is incredibly impressive, especially as this occurs at the same time that students participate in collaborative cohorts, work on metacognitive strategies, and learn to view reading and writing as integrated.

• ·      Is SF State’s IRW model the same type of model that is called for in the article we read from The Chronicle of Higher Education?

• ·      What is the PPC model that is mentioned on page 99? 

• ·      I like the point that “we ‘draft’ a first reading and revise or elaborate on it in subsequent readings, just as we do in writing” (99).

• ·    I like the idea of having students cultivate an “internalized reader” to guide their writing process.

Second Article Summary: Sugie Goen-Salter’s “Critiquing the Need to Eliminate Remediation: Lessons from San Francisco State” argues that more resources need to be allocated to develop innovative teaching approaches to basic writing instruction, including more graduate programs to prepare teachers to take an integrated reading and writing approach. The article also attempts to raise historical consciousness about the CSU’s approach to eliminating remediation at the university level. Goen-Salter outlines the history of CSU’s attempts to eliminate remediation by reducing the number of incoming first-year students. The CSU focused on strengthening high school English requirements along with cooperate partnerships between the CSUs and high schools, in order to clarify expectations for college-level reading and writing and get high school teachers to adopt university standards in their curriculum.

Even as these plans were implemented, the number of remedial students entering the university continued to increase. Goen-Salter traces the CSU’s continual attempts to limit remedial students from entering the university by placing a one-year limit on remedial education and threatening dis-enrollment from the university if the remedial courses were not passed. She also identifies the “institutional amnesia” behind such attempts, since the pattern continues with no effort to learn from the failures of past attempts. This blindness to history makes basic writing vulnerable to attempts to eliminate it, Goen-Salter points out. She notes that concerns about curriculum, pedagogy, and basic writing theory should be considered in administrative policy decisions. To remedy these blind spots, the article situates the IRW project within the context of this history of remediation in order to question attempts to eliminate remediation.

Goen-Salter describes the theory and pedagogy behind the IRW program, noting that it addressed concerns that reducing incoming remedial students would threaten CSU’s access and equity, and that attempts to dismantle remediation are linked to a view of reading and writing as separate processes. Goen-Salter cites empirical research demonstrating the interconnectedness of reading and writing and the ways in which each informs the other: “better writers tend to be better readers, better writers tend to read more than poorer writers, and better readers tend to produce more mature prose than poorer readers” (84). Because of these links, students will benefit greatly from a curriculum that connects reading and writing. The IRW approach at SF State was an attempt to see if these benefits could also “eliminate the ‘need for remediation’” (85) by accelerating students’ progress through their reading and writing courses, both at the developmental and college levels.

As in her earlier article, Goen-Salter describes the main components of the IRW approach here, noting that the goal is “to break down the barrier between text reception and text production, by inviting students to look at a text they read for clues to its production, and a text they produce for clues to how it might be received” (86), which occurs alongside the development of metacognitive awareness. Assignments like the “difficulty paper” and KWL+ are designed to promote this kind of self-consciousness about reading and writing processes, and to demonstrate their reciprocal relationship.

Goen-Salter outlines the results of the IRW project, noting its high retention rates and the fact that retention has improved over the years. For the three years of the pilot project, IRW students passed the integrated course at a higher rate than students enrolled in the traditional sequence. Goen-Salter provides detailed tables to demonstrate how these outcomes were measured between the IRW and control groups.

Goen-Salter describes various other strategies for eliminating remediation, including the CAPI partnership and EAP program, which focus on strengthening high school reading and writing curriculum. While she commends these projects, Goen-Salter notes that they cannot constitute the entire effort to eliminate remediation because they embody the flawed reasoning that setting higher standards in high school will get rid of remediation, reasoning which has proven to be false in the past. She also critiques CSU’s attempts to outsource remedial instruction to adult continuing education courses or community colleges. She notes that the IRW approach provides a more viable solution than these options.

In conclusion, Goen-Salter questions the “institutional need” to claim that remediation must be eliminated, arguing instead that we rethink our conventional perceptions of remediation, to avoid seeing it merely as a problem in need of a solution. If we continue to think of remediation in this way, we remain in a double bind, caught between offering remedial programs in the name of equal opportunity, and attempting to eliminate them in the name of maintaining high standards. By adopting the IRW approach, this problem will disappear, and the CSUs can begin to see “its campuses as the appropriate location for basic writing instruction” (98). Goen-Salter calls for more graduate programs to focus on training basic writing teachers and incorporating an IRW approach.

Responses/Questions:

• ·      When Goen-Salter discusses the IRW approach at SF State as part of an effort to “eliminate the ‘need for remediation’” (85), I wonder if this can actually occur across the board and in all situations, given the various needs and diverse abilities of students; can the admittedly successful and effective IRW approach completely eliminate the need for remedial-level courses? It sounds a bit like a kind of “magic cure” in theory, and I wonder if it would be less successful when put into practice.

• ·      I like the idea of assigning a “difficulty paper” to promote self-reflection, and would like to try this out in my future classes. What would a prompt for this kind of paper look like?

• ·      When Goen-Salter mentions that “we have seen more than twenty community college instructors … come to our campus to take the course [in Teaching Integrated Reading and Writing] so they could begin to develop integrated reading/writing courses at their home institutions” (100), she is talking about me! I’m glad that other community college instructors have also done this, and hope that more will do so in the future.

 

Week 3: Before Reading: Underprepared Students

 

Before you read:  What skills does a student need to be "ready for college-level work"?  How should colleges deal with students who are not ready for college level work?  Should such students be excluded from college?  Should they be sennt to community college first?  Should they be given a time limit for "getting up to speed"?  Should they be allowed to take other courses while they're making up "deficiencies" in reading/writing?   

        Students need a wide range of skills to be ready for college-level work. These include having effective time-management and study skills, or the habits that lead to effective learning. But perhaps even more important is the mindset of the student; successful students take responsibility for their own learning (rather than perceiving themselves as victims) and possess the motivation and perseverance that will carry them through the inevitable obstacles and challenges of academia. These personal traits are essential, and they aren’t necessarily taught in the classroom. Also, successful students tend to display a genuine desire to learn and authentic intellectual curiosity, an interest in learning for the sake of learning itself, rather than focusing only on earning an A or fulfilling a requirement (what might be called "intrinsic" versus "extrinsic" motivation).

When students are not ready for college-level work, they can be referred to meet with academic counselors who can educate them on what it takes to succeed in their classes and orient them to college resources. Colleges can also address this issue on an administrative level, by offering programs like learning communities and cohorts, which often lead to better retention rates and more effective learning (since under-prepared students often persevere in school and absorb information more effectively when surrounded by peers who are experiencing the same challenges). So no, such students should most definitely not be excluded from college; they simply need to have their specific needs met, and this requires that a college offer the resources necessary to meet the needs of a diverse and changing student population. Such resources could include the learning communities mentioned above, study skills classes geared toward first-year students, and programs that target a specific sociocultural population, such as the Puente program offered at many California community colleges, or Mfumo at Foothill College for African American students. Support programs such as Foothill’s EOPS Program also provide financial support for students who are struggling to pay for college. 

I’m not sure about the question about whether under-prepared students should be sent to community college first. Since I teach at a community college, I don’t necessarily see community college as a step beneath the state universities. For most of our students, attending community college offers a more affordable way to get a high-quality education. Many students are not at the community college because they aren’t yet ready academically for the state university, but rather because they want to save money and perhaps stay closer to home for a certain period of time. Also, offering developmental classes is only part of the mission of the community college; other parts of the mission include a focus on transfer-level education, vocational training, and lifelong learning. Therefore, relegating under-prepared students to the community college would make these colleges a kind of "dumping ground," and would not fulfill the larger mission and purpose of the community college.

I do think that implementing some kind of “time limit” for students to become prepared for college is a good idea. An “exit exam” given at the end of the developmental reading and writing sequence is one way to measure students’ preparation for college-level courses; perhaps students could be allowed no more than two attempts to pass through a developmental sequence. I think students should be allowed to take other courses while they are making up “deficiencies” in reading and writing, as long as there is some kind of limit on how many times they are allowed to try to pass these courses.