What I like:
I like the authors’ goal of drawing
students “into the academic community and helping them to discover their
existing competence as thinkers and writers and the relationship between what
they know and what and how they will come to know” (3). This focus on the
competence and literacy that students already
bring to the classroom is an important part of creating curriculum that helps
students become authentic members of the academic community.
I like the advice that “as teachers, we have to
be willing to set aside, for a time, the ‘stuff’ we are carrying and take these
students up where they are, as individuals … without becoming shattered by
multiple failures” (5). Too often, instructors let their own agendas and
expectations dictate what occurs in the classroom, when in fact just letting go
of an agenda, and relating to students based on who they are as people, and how
they are feeling at a particular moment, can lead to improved student progress
and a more dynamic and enjoyable classroom atmosphere.
I like the suggestion that teachers must
overcome their view of students as “outsiders” whose worldview threatens the
world we know (5), but I wonder how exactly this new perspective might be
achieved?
I like the recognition that acquiring academic
language is intricately tied to the cultural perspective represented in
academic discourses (8). To provide a more welcoming environment, instructors
must “alter” the academic context by providing more responsive (multicultural)
curriculum (12).
I like the emphasis on both teachers and
students developing “dynamic, reciprocal processes of teaching and learning”
(14), which shifts power away from the teacher and toward a more
student-centered classroom.
I like the metacognitive focus on having “both
students and teachers … discover their competence as learners who know what they know, know that they know, and know how they know,” and the link between
academic knowledge and prior knowledge: “these new kinds of knowledge have a
direct relationship to the knowledge they already possess” (15).
I really like the emphasis on drawing upon
students’ prior personal experiences, and treating these experiences as a
foundation for academic discourse (17). Along with this, the authors recognize
that students come to learning as members of other communities, and that these
communities have already imparted significant kinds of knowledge that they can
utilize in the classroom. This calls for creating a classroom that contextualizes
their prior knowledge.
I like that the authors advocate transferring
the knowledge attained in the classroom to real-world contexts.
I like the authors’ rejection of the “drill and
kill” approach to language instruction, and their recognition that becoming
overly conscious of errors can harm the process of language acquisition (25).
By contrast, the authors suggest creating an “acquisition-oriented classroom”
in which students become active learners by formulating hypotheses about
written discourse (31), which reminds me of IRW’s KWL+ approach.
I like the suggestion that teachers need to see
their students’ writing differently, as not possessing deficits or gaps, but as
already competent (and with the potential to improve). This is something I need
to cultivate as an instructor with my own classes.
I like the authors’ view that writing is a
means, not an end in itself, since the “end” lies in the questions and
interpretations that writing can produce (so less emphasis in placed on writing
itself as the final product) (83).
I like the focus on developing
interdisciplinary courses that draw upon a variety of media and activities,
including lectures, debates, films, books, etc. (85)
What is problematic:
I was uncertain about the analogy used in
Chapter Four, which compares the instructor’s position with that of an
anthropological field worker (57). This seems to presuppose that the instructor
is from an entirely separate culture than that of the students, standing alone
outside of this culture. This analogy seems flawed because the teacher-student
relationship is more blurry and complex than this, and often less distant.
The authors very clearly state which teaching approaches
they reject, but are less clear about how the approach they are advocating
could be implemented through specific assignments and activities. They do note
that they assign portfolios, process journals, and other exploratory modes of
writing, but the book lacks descriptions of these assignments (82). I found
myself longing for something like Bartholomae and Petrosky’s specific and
clearly scaffolded discussion of their BRW course.
What I have questions about:
I like the discussion of “interlanguage,”
features that do not occur either in the students’ spoken language or in the
target language of academic discourse (32), and wish more explanation would
have been provided on how instructors can work with examples of interlanguage
when discussing the writing process.
How can the dichotomy between the abstract
thinking that is traditionally privileged in the academic world and the
embedded, situated thinking often valued in other contexts and cultures (50),
be overturned in the classroom? Which specific activities and assignments would
overcome this dichotomy?
How, precisely, can we move students toward
“dialectical” and “metaphorical” levels of thinking, while at the same time
integrating “analytical and logical approaches” (51)? Which particular
assignments and lessons would facilitate this new kind of thinking?
How can we “create writing courses that would
provide opportunities for inquiry and discovery … and take into account both
the contexts our students came from and the new contexts they were entering”
(73)? How can we make the writing classroom a more “natural” and less
“artificial” space? It would be great to see specific assignments that focus on
this.
I’m not sure what the authors mean by
“systematicity in the acquisition of new discourse structures appropriate to
written academic discourse” (63) and would like more explanation of “systematicity”.
What I will include in my own unit design:
I will include assignments that draw on
students’ own competence, by assigning personal narratives and asking students
to connect their personal experiences to the texts we read.
I will encourage students to participate in
dialectical and metaphorical kinds of thinking by assigning a dialectical
journal which asks them to directly respond to (and provide compelling
interpretations of) key passages in the assigned texts.
I will encourage multiple perspectives and
validate multicultural experiences by assigning multicultural readings and
asking students to explore how their diverse individual experiences relate to
the topic being discussed.
I will try to have students discuss topics that
they care about and can become invested in, so that my instruction will “foster
both engagement and responsibility” (81).
How this approach fits in with the principles
and strategies we’ve been discussing this semester:
Like Bartholomae and Petrosky,
the authors advocate “an authentic immersion [of developmental writers] in the
[academic] community” (7), rather than remedial courses that would
“quarantine,” or isolate them from it. They offer much less specific
information on how this might be accomplished, though.
Like McCormick, the authors draw upon prior
knowledge/schema, to establish what students already know, and which particular
ideologies inform students’ thinking (15).
The
focus on what the writer brings to the task from their individual background is
very “expressivist.”
The
discussion of how speakers of Black English are often viewed as not
understanding proper English (and therefore as weak thinkers) reminds me of our
discussions of AAVE and Chicano English in English 704 class (78).
