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Cheryl Hogue Smith explores the assumption that basic writers do not have the necessary critical thinking skills needed for college courses. She argues that they do; they just don't know how to control and organize their thinking onto paper. She examines the two different goals that students have in regard to the approach they take for learning. Ultimately, Smith concludes that basic writing students have the thinking skills needed, they just need to be taught how to harness those skills and be metacognitive. I found this article to be very interesting because Smith was able to get to the actual root of the problem and explain why basic writers are basic writers. I really appreciated the explanation of the difference between the two goals--"learning goals" and "performance goals." I believe that if a teacher can grasp this concept and utilize it in the classroom to assist the "performance goal" oriented students to become "learning goal" oriented, I think that the students will benefit a great deal and become much better at taking their thoughts and putting them on paper. Additionally, I loved the "Revision and Metacognition" and "Steven and Charlotte: Evidence of Metacognitive Revision" sections! I think this way of revising is a great way to help develop a students critical thinking skills in regard to how they present their thoughts onto paper.

Apparently the link on this isn't working. Here it is again, I hope it works: http://ehis.ebscohost.com.mantis.csuchico.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&hid=20&sid=fbc21340-0df1-41b8-934a-01f3805e708d%40sessionmgr15

Jerry Herman explains the class curriculum that he created for a critical thinking class. He describes the three essays that the students are to write with the third one being a group project. The three essays are interesting and creative. The first one being the oddest assignment I have come across--the students are to examine a piece of fruit for at least an hour and then write an essay about it. This essay, although a strange technique, is actually quite remarkable for getting students to think critically. The assignment is described in detail in this article. This article was so interesting to me that when I reached the end of it I couldn't believe I'd read all 10 pages! This essay has also turned out to the the catalyst for my inquiry assignment. I'm incredibly interested in figuring out how to get students to think more critically and not just "follow the leader." I've learned from the students in my 30 class that they think a research paper is just a regurgitation of what other people have written. They don't put themselves into the paper and argue using their sources for support of that argument. Not only do I want to teach students how to think more critically, I want to be able to do it in a creative manner. I love the last few lines of this article, "I remember one student who, for the first few weeks, slouched in his desk looking bored. One day he abruptly raised his hand. When I recognized him, he said somewhat indignantly, as though the light bulb had just flashed on, 'I get it. You're not trying to teach us things. You're trying to change the way we think.' Amen."

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.

This article by David M. Pegram is about taking the "research paper" out of a research paper. He uses a different title, calling it a "proposal writing," making the paper become a much more lucrative project. He has developed a blueprint for teaching in this creative manner which he begins by using characters from a tv show, X Files, to demonstrate the uses of the left and right sides of the brain. He shows how Mulder and Scully ask "what if" and then each goes about their right or left sided brain way to answer their own question. I was interested in this article because Pegram gives a very creative way to get students to think critically. I strongly believe that many of these young high school/college students lack the necessary skill of critical thinking. When I can start teaching, I really want to be able to instill this life skill with my students. I think Pegram's approach is definitely a doable and logical way of doing this.

Although this article discusses getting past writer's block for creative fiction writing, I still think that some of Smolens ideas are worth mentioning. His major focus is time. Smolen suggests that writers should give themselves a minimum amount of time to write in a session--just to get ideas flowing. In addition, he suggests that writers ask themselves questions about their environment. Where do they write and what makes their writing focused or distracted because of where they write? What sorts of noise occurs that promotes or reduces the flow of ideas when composing? After each timed writing session, Smolen states that writers to leave their paper and go walk around or visit a new environment for a minimum amount of time. This will help bring in new "fresh" ideas that may help the writing process during the next session. I think Smolen's suggestions of balancing your time between writing and taking constructive breaks can be useful for moving past writer's block, especially giving yourself timed writing sessions and breaks. this gives an external structure on how to compose that may be beneficial to those who feel that they should sit all day, staring at a blank computer screen, hoping to get past their writer's block if they sit there long enough.

In May I took the CBEST without studying because everyone told me it was super easy, and that all you needed to do to study for a test like that is breathe. I did not pass one section, which left me heartbroken. I was so hung up on the idea that I hadn't passed such an easy test that I didn't stop to think about why. Of course I didn't study, but I shouldn't have to, I thought. According to this article and the book being discussed, "the brain will avoid thinking and instead try to rely on memory." Maybe I just tried to rely too much on my memories of the material in all those classes years ago, and my brain avoided actually thinking and synthesizing the material. Or maybe I needed to really study. Either way, an interesting read. (Oh, and I just finished retaking the CBEST this morning)

This article explains one way to help students explore materials when students need to develop an effective thesis for their profile essay. The professor asks students to do general everyday freewriting related to the topic (an unusual place). Although the author doesn't show all students' freewritings, the only example shown in the article shows a developmental track of how a student explores his/her ideas and write the thesis. It is a process that the student finds and writes the thesis, and it takes time to complete the process. The author posts an invention to help students start essay writing in academic environment. There is no formal rigid writing pattern but a way to help students get into the topic and object; students will use writing as a thinking tool to think and critique the object when they get more information about it. My question is that this invention strategy can be considered as a project for a teacher but an activity in writing process for students. It takes time for teachers to think and design and for students to really do it. There should be more unpredictable problems, so teachers should pay more attention on this strategy.

Thinking of invention in chapter two of our text lead me to think about the ways in which we write to express self. This article discusses how the world of texting, instant messaging, blogging and other such types of writing help to open our minds to our inner thoughts. We are free from the rules and regulations of a stereotypical classroom and are also allowed to share and respond to others writing. The internet and cell phones have opened up a huge new space for writing. Some think it's hindering and destroying language, while others believe its radically changing it for the better. I want to start my journey here and reach my own personal conclusion through further research and discussions.

This article focuses on the relationship between students and teachers and how students feel about the way their teachers act. They gathered information by conducting surveys and focus-groups in an effort to truly understand how what students think about their teachers, and how their relationships effected the students' achievement in school. They collected information from three different sources: special education, general education, and honors education. The results for all three were incredibly similar with some slight differences in what the students focused on. In general, the students responded very amiably to teachers who demonstrated respect and caring for their students and conveyed high expectations of them. It became clear that students were very aware of the amount of effort teachers put in to connecting with their students and the amount of work the teachers put in to the class. In many cases when the teachers told stories, demonstrated respect, and tried to relate to their students on a personal level, treating them as humans and peers rather than subordinates, the students were not only more engaged in the assignments but they admitted that they grew fond of those teachers and their classes. The article was incredibly interesting to me because of the fact that they focused on the students' perceptions rather than the teachers'. I've read many studies that interview teachers and discuss what the teachers think they've effectively conveyed to their students but it is rare to really see how students feel and think, though it seems to me that the students' opinions should be a larger focus because they're the ones who are trying to learn. This article has made me realize that what a teacher says is not always the most important aspect of effectively teaching information, but instead, what really matters, is the way they say it and the way they make their students feel.

I found this article to be interesting, and overall useful when thinking about the writing process as a whole. Junot Diaz is the pulitzer prize winning author of "The Brief, Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao," and, "Drown." He is one of my favorite writers, and I believe that reading about his routine, how he became a writer, and his thoughts on the craft can only be helpful.

sound interesting...i think i'll check it out.

This article is about using ellipsis in writing and in creativity in classrooms and books. They start out with how it can leave an audience hanging or getting them to think cognitively about what is being asked on a certain thought. This is in opposition to the traditional teaching methods of lecturing and providing answers to facts. This also helps promote creativity in student and teacher learning in classrooms. The teacher can then also help promote scaffolding the students to the main topic. Using this style helps students to think about why and how they learn and write. The best thing that I got out of this was how this gets students involved personally in learning and helps students participate in classrooms and writing.

Ellipsis defined how?

This article discusses "how emotions affect the composing process" in academic writing. The author argues that writing assignments that demand "critical thinking and identity shifts" cause anxiety for students, hence why they cannot fully engage in "critical analytic writing" under these conditions. The author suggests instructors need to better understand these conditions in order to help students succeed in academic writing. ENGL 431 would find this article useful because the students we are observing are at stage in life in which identity and self-discovery is central. Therefore, tutors, mentors, and instructors may be able to use these factors to draw connections between "discourse and emotion." Also, if tutors, mentors, and instructors found a way to make themselves more relate-able the students would feel more comfortable in the classroom setting. In turn, by making academic writing, in some way about the students they would feel more comfortable about academic writing assignments.

"I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying science, although in different areas. She later dropped out of graduate school, went to Harvard Law School and is now a senior lawyer for a major environmental organization. At some point, the conversation turned to why she had left graduate school. To my utter astonishment, she said it was because it made her feel stupid. After a couple of years of feeling stupid every day, she was ready to do something else. I had thought of her as one of the brightest people I knew and her subsequent career supports that view. What she said bothered me. I kept thinking about it; sometime the next day, it hit me. Science makes me feel stupid too. It's just that I've gotten used to it. So used to it, in fact, that I actively seek out new opportunities to feel stupid. I wouldn't know what to do without that feeling. I even think it's supposed to be this way."

This is an interesting article of a professor describing how he strayed away from the typical freshman comp syllabus to teach a class that would be relevant to the students. He used a current event (the Immigration Debate) that was especially relevant to his students; the majority were Latino/Chicano and lived in Southern California. He starts the article by giving a history of the immigration debate which isn't important to what we're studying. But then he starts talking about his class at the bottom of page 20 (that's where the article starts to get interesting) and describes how he planned his lessons and writing assignments to be centered around this debate. He tried to make the class interesting for the students and wanted them to feel like they were really learning something. The students had to write a series of essays describing what side of the issue they were on and they had to back up their reasoning with sound evidence and support. Hale describes the work as "challenging assignments that focused on critical thinking and argumentation: (26). All of this led up to a final research paper they had to do which the students would have an easier time doing because they already have a wide range of knowledge on the subject which Hale says "helped to prepare the students to write their research paper" (26). After all the articles the students had read they also had "a good databank of sources to back them up" (27). Hale also describes how this take on teaching was helpful to him as an educator. This was a subject he was very interested in and he notes that he "was tired of placing such a huge firewall between my classroom and my outside activism" (27) so by making his assignment something he was interested in, his enthusiasm would get the students interested too. He states that "the immigration debate engaged my interest as a teacher in a way that standardized assignments did not" (27) and I think this is an important thing for educators to consider when ma

This isn't a scholarly source but it is actually kind of interesting. A grad student that will be teaching freshman comp is asking for advice on how to structure and teach the class. A lot of the questions he has are similar to the things that we've been discussing in class, like how to make the work relevant, how to get the students interested. The comments and suggestions people left had a lot to do with the importance of grading rubrics, teachers leaving comments on the students' papers, etc. Also, suggestions highlight being clear to your students with regards to expectations and then explaining reasons for the grades they get. I think this is a good webpage to look at just to see how other people are thinking about freshmen comp and teaching in general. It's interesting to see other people's perspectives.

Byung-In Seo explains why she teaches the rigid five-paragraph essay to her remedial students. She argues that doing so gives the students a formula to follow. This is important because the majority of her have trouble organizing their thoughts when they try to speak with her, let alone trying to write in an organized manner. She states that once the students grasp the basic five-sentence, five-paragraph essay, she allows them to extend beyond that as they become more fluent in essay writing. I found this article interesting because after tutoring in a high school where the five-sentence, five-paragraph essay was the ONLY format allowed, I began to have a negative opinion of such rigidity. However, Seo's philosophy is one I can agree with and one in which I can see working to bring the remedial students to a higher level of writing. I also think that following Seo's lead will also help those students develop critical thinking skills that will benefit them in their everyday lives.

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