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This source details the author's experience of teaching a course called 'Experimental Writing' to college seniors. Using several chapters from the book Free Play by Steven Nachmanovitch, the instructor introduces the topic of play as an important element of the course. Having read the book myself I think that it is a worthy read, and it has influenced my approach to academic projects by widening my perception of my action as not just reactionary study toward a grade, but play within a field offered by the instructor where success and failure are accepted as process and there is no fixed upper limit to achievement. In other words the writing is can be thought of as a kind of 'funktionslust' a pleasure of doing, not simply an action toward an objective. To create motivation within students requires that they let go of the dire seriousness that school is associated with; school is something to be completed out of necessity not something that can offer individuals new insight to themselves, or the aspects of themselves that have been suppressed by conformity and fear. The author does not entirely endorse the use of Nachmanovitch's text in 'traditional writing classes' because the text discourages many of the elements that are at hand in the traditional approach to teaching (like writing for a letter grade). I chose to be an English major because I felt the most freedom of expression within my English classes; I was offered a choice of what topics to engage with. But increasingly specific expectations from teachers handcuffed my raw creativity. Even so, I think that an increased degree of freedom within writing classes would boost student enthusiasm. The question then is how do we increase the freedom of expression for students of basic writing, where there are necessary modes of measure for the articulation of the chosen subjects (other than simply allowing them to choose their subjects)? To what degree does the rubric shape student identity by for

This article introduces several methodologies in order to tackle writer's block. It includes eight different strategies that range from talking to admirable advisors for their opinions on your current writing assignment and genre to listening to music--how even psychologists agree that the creation of writing with the presence of music playing is beneficial to breaking down stumps in the road of writing. I wanted to see if i could find Cynthia A. Arem's book, Conquering Writing Anxiety, in the Library's Research database due to the fact that her book contains "self-assessment charts and strategies to break cycles of both writer's anxiety and writer's block" but this article seems like the next best thing :) I'll find more articles and books on writer's block this week as well.

As an avid Video game enthusiast, I've always been curious about what exactly makes them so rewarding to play. Some would say story but that can't possibly account for the success of games like Call of Duty and games like Bioshock are not critically acclaimed solely for their gameplay. This video from a web series called Extra Credits (think TED talks meets gaming) touches on the theory of Gamification. The concept is best summarized in the video where they state "Gamification is simply the idea of taking the principles of play, the things we've learned in three decades of making videogames and using them to make real world activities more engaging." If this theory could be refined and applied to learning, both in and outside the classroom, I feel we would see an almost revolutionary shift in student engagement and enthusiasm.

This is something of a partner to my other posting. Jane Mcgoningal, the author of the text analyzes gaming from chess to Call of Duty and looks at what keeps us playing. She also analyzes what can only be called a crisis of interest. People who play games rarely invest themselves in their real life as much as they do their virtual life and Mcgonigal tries to explore how to efficiently channel this focus to worldwide issues.

This is a bit more general than my previous posting but I feel it meshes well with my previous video on gamification. In this video, Jane Mcgonigal discusses the potential for video games, or at least the factors that keep us playing them, being a force for good in the modern age. Especially interesting is that she talks about how playing MORE games could solve a number of real world problems.

This article focused on how student-teacher relationships play a part in the students' development. They particularly focused on what part alienation played in students' academic achievement and in their level of disciplinary problems. It also focused on how these relationships varied between different school settings and among varying racial-ethnic groups.

This article examines the importance of student authority plays in ethnographic writing. The article explores how examining ethnographic writings of students can play an important role in shaping future learning methods in the specific field. The article demonstate how promoting authority in writing helps a student become more actively involved in their field of study. Demanding authority helps student piece together information and concepts coming from their beginning anthropology courses. What more, the students grew in their writing as they were given explicit instruction on how to write in a voice that addressed their specific field.

To paraphrase, all things are not explainable in the sense that they are useful to us. We have a deep need to enact things Symbolically. I am posting to save as link to a better source of this guy's thoughts.

I watched this video in ENGL 030E workshop, and I am very interested in this video and the way the tutor use this video. The tutor show the video twice to students and assign them 8 minute quick write about what they have known from the video; after the quick write, the tutor let them discussion what they have gotten from the video in small group and share in the big group. In the big group discussion, some students mentioned that they "saw" words in the video. After discussion, the tutor show the video third time and asked students to write down all the words they have "seen" in this video. At the third, I figured out that the video shows different definitions of same words, like play, blow, run, etc., and the transitions between the words are done well. Through the process of thinking and discussing, the students noticed the words and the fluent transition. At the end of the discussion, the tutor collected the students' writings. The questions I raise from this video are that: 1. How to guide students to have such thinking rather than limited eyes. There will be more than two viewpoints to the same phenomenon, just like the different but interrelated definitions of the same word. At the beginning of the writing, the thought about the writing should be not limited in a specific topic or certain aspect, and writer can explore more ideas than they can. 2. How to start and use the invention strategies to avoid mechanical writing. Writing can be anything, not only the structure but also the idea. How to organize the essay, the structure, should be considered when the writing is certain; when having no idea of what to write, the free thinking and think deeper would be much more useful. It could be anything to inspire thoughts and ideas, like vocabulary, normal experience and so on. The video, the way the tutor delivers and the reading (Chapter 2 in Clark's book) make me think about how to really use the invention strategies.

If you're studying for a test, putting on background music that you like may seem like a good idea. But if you're trying to memorize a list in order -- facts, numbers, elements of the periodic table -- the music may actually be working against you, a new study suggests. I want to find information on listening to music in the classroom, specifically the English 30 classes. I find the constant playing of Pandora to be distracting and I want to know if it's detrimental to the English 30 students learning, etc. So far I've found issues with listening to music and memorization, but not necessarily as it relates to writing workshops like the one I'm interning in now.

Let's try to stretch beyond CNN reports, which most often are quick and superficial.

This article by Dr. Janette Hughes talks about the import role poetry plays in literacy development and how multi-media uses of poetry in the classroom can further enhance and engage a students learning process. For the sake of how in depth both of these subjects are, I'm only going to discuss what Dr. Hughes says about poetry and literacy development in this article. "Paying attention to the language and rhythms of poetry helps build oral language skills…..Children with well-developed oral language skills are more likely to have higher achievement in reading and writing" (Hughes). Poetry has an elitist stereotype to it, and tends to be something kept out of middle school and high school classrooms for the most part. Some English classes may briefly touch on some of the cannons of poetry, but only focus on a traditional notion of reading the context and finding the one single meaning. As Hughes states, "The dominant model of poetry teaching, particularly for older students, has been to teach poetry through print text and to focus on finding one meaning to be dissected. In contrast, poets emphasize the importance of hearing the poem read aloud, engaging with it, and probing for deeper meaning through discussion with others" (Hughes). I feel that engagement in poetry provides tools applicable to understanding every type of text. The brevity in poetry forces your mind to work in more analytical ways, and a facilitation of this analysis with other students provides a type of engaging learning experience that can be applied to any type of text for any class. This article really fascinated me, and left me with many more questions and ideas I would like to explore regarding poetry in the classroom.

This article challenges the idea that there is a binary distinction between academic writing and an author's identity. He argues that identity is always present in writing and that it is impossible to separate one from the other. As such, it is important for teachers to help students understand the role that identity plays in academic writing. For example, students must understand that the presence of identity is not tied to the presence of the pronoun "I." Instead, he advises teachers to show students that identity in academic writing involves connecting passion, point of view, and experience with research, evidence, and analysis. He finishes by pointing out that researchers dedicate their lives to their fields because of their identities, not in spite of them. In the same way, students must find a field of study that fits their own interests, so that they can produce meaningful writing.

apparently the link I provided is wrong. This should be the correct link. Sorry for the error. http://ehis.ebscohost.com.mantis.csuchico.edu/eds/detail?vid=8&hid=23&sid=cd495c58-13e5-4797-b3c8-a7e279a3685e%40sessionmgr11&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=aph&AN=20913663

This article by Laurie Grobman (also author of one of this week's article assignments from the course packet) describes the ways in which undergraduate participation in research and research publication contributes to increased authority and sense of authorship in undergraduate students. This authorship puts the students in discourse with their education and beyond, creating a purpose and identification with their course of study rather than making them passive receivers of it. This benefits their confidence and command of composition as well as putting them in the "driver seat", so to speak, of their participation in academia, and levels the playing field of student and "real" writing, erasing old and disadvantaging dichotomies.

This article is about how students have low-confidence in their writing abilities and how that greatly hinders their ability to get through a paper. The author, Christy Martinez, explains how the students haven't been taught or prepared to write well or they don't believe they can write well and so don't try hard because the students don't see the point. Martinez argues that "through mentoring and tutoring, teachers can help students become more confident, engaged writers." The article talks about where writing anxiety comes from and notes a variety of the different types of anxiety that students experience. Martinez claims that high expectations on writing is one of the major sources of anxiety. She also talks about students' self-efficacy and how that plays a major role in their writing ability. Some students believe that they can not write and that they don't write well so they don't even try to turn in a good paper. Martinez then shows the results of a study that focused on predictors of writing anxiety and self-efficacy and attempted to find the relationship. The study took gender, GPAs, and actual interest in writing as a recreational activity into account. The article read more like a self-help column towards the end. The methods Martinez list for combating writing anxiety include "breathing exercises, meditation, and guided imagery." She then goes on to note ways teachers can help students to be less anxious about their writing and to encourage them to try harder.

Patrick Hartwell discusses the value of teaching formal grammar by reviewing its history as a fundamental building block to the development of good writing. By determining a set of definitions for grammar Hartwell shows that the process of absorbing correct grammar usage occurs within native speakers naturally by exposure to the language; even young children are able to use complex grammatical structures with skill. Yet when sorted through the scientific lens and broken down into categories and labels the study of grammar cannot explain how learning the component rules of language will prove valuable to overall writing ability. Instead Hartwell suggests and I agree that "one learns to control the language of print by manipulating language in meaningful contexts, not by learning about language in isolation, as by the study of formal grammar" (125). Language, Hartwell says is "verbal clay, to be molded and probed, shaped and reshaped, and, above all, enjoyed" (125). So language is play dough; it is supposed to be fun; it should not be something you do because you have to, but because you want to; you do it because you like to do it; it is about process not product. What can tutors/teachers do that can encourage students to view writing not as a means to an end, but as a valuable tool of expression, a concrete manifestation of focused energy that is representative of an individual's attempt to express? This need to express is at work on us all of the time; our survival depends on it. That is not an exaggeration; a closed mouth does not get fed. By funneling our thoughts into words, even if the result is an approximation of the truth of our energetic pursuits, there is still a result. Words do work on people because people feel. Maybe some of the frustration that freshman feel is a result of the heaviness of the rulebook; certain grammar rules affect student grades, certain constraints are imposed by the teachers rubric and the teacher as well a