ENGL431fosen

The author of this article uses the critical perspectives of Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of language and Lev Vygotsky's theory of language learning to examine the polyphonic texture of writing workshops, the dialogic classroom, the teacher's role as writer and authority figure, and the student's search for voice and role. So, she decides to participate in and observe (two students in particular) an introductory composition class in order to explain the polyphonic texture of workshops. In the end, she concludes stating that "we must resist reductive descriptions of our students' development as writers. (…) each writing workshop will compose a different "polyphony" of disparate elements which each student will appropriate and reshape in different configurations" (171). Unfortunately, you will have to log in as a member to view this article. It can also be found in Chico State's e-library.

This article goes into great detail about how the physical classroom should be designed. O'Hare makes two big distinctions between lectures and discussion-based learning, and how lectures do not encourage a community of active learning because students are not facing each other. However, when students are facing each other, it is much easier for a discussion to happen between the students. To make this possible, O'Hare discusses seating arrangements, lighting, blackboards/chalkboards, projectors, and desks that can properly satisfy student needs.

In this article, L. Brent Igo researches the differences of both the competence and the beliefs views (two views which constitute self-efficacy) across three educational levels (high school juniors, college freshmen, and college juniors). He explores the idea of motivation for students to adequately learn. "Students who are confident in their ability to be successful on a specific task are likely to be motivated to engage in the task." Students are less likely to be engaged and interested in fulfilling an assignment when they lack confidence in that what they know is actually useful to completing such a given task. The nature of the task as well as an individual's prior experiences can determine one's self-efficacy within the classroom. --- this could be because of past experiences within previous classrooms and/or the lack of proper teaching/feedback from previous teachers. A teachers' feedback could also affect a student's perceived competence - the way in which the feedback is structured or what it focuses on could explain why students don't pick up on certain areas of composition as much as others.

I thought this article was a good fit on the path I, believe, I will be taking for my inquiry project ----- student efficacy within an English workshop. The article, written by James Williams and Seiji Takaku, covers the basis of workshops much like Rodby and Fox did in our packet article; however, the article instead of focusing on the structure of workshops focused on the students' efficacy and the effects it may have in order for a workshop to function as it was intended to - to help students better their composition skills in and outside of the English classroom. The article also mentions research done on students within "remedial" workshops and realized "...students had self-efficacy beliefs that did not match their writing performance .... their overestimated sense of efficacy was related to a lack of appropriate, correctional feedback in high school as well as to the tendency among high school teachers to praise and reward students for merely participating in the writing process rather than for producing good work" (3). I thought this statement was interesting because I find it to be true, especially in my experience with not only my internship at PVHS but also with my experience, this year, in Eng 30 workshops and my tutor sessions with second language learners. Sometimes educators focus on participation and the actual process of completing an assignment rather than making sure the student is adequately learning and putting into practice what is being taught/learned. The article also acknowledges the workshop characteristics that may affect students' self-efficacy in the first place. "In the U.S., the majority of writing centers rely on peer tutors" (4). "Some staff include graduate students, but only 3% of 4-year public universities employ professional tutors, that is, persons with an advanced degree" (4). This was a keynote since it reflects on the Casanave article from our class packet ---- to what degree can a peer be considered an actual peer

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."

Franci Washburn argues the importance of a student using the ellipsis correctly. However, the focus isn't just on this seemingly simple and low-priority aspect of writing, she focuses on the fact that students who use the ellipsis correctly tend to be paying attention to the smaller details in writing and are more apt to be critical thinkers. She uses this example for noting the huge importance of paying attention to small details "Often, it isn't a major, glaring error that loses an investor a million dollars in the stock market but rather the failure to read the fine print on a stock prospectus . . . " She's right! It is incredibly important to pay attention to details or read the fine print; this seems to be a skill that is becoming more and more rare. Even though this is a short article, it had a pretty big impact on me. I've always been baffled when instructors tell their students that grammar doesn't matter (yes, even English professors have said this). I think that paying attention to grammar and punctuation helps a student to learn to look at details. However, having said this, I do believe that when revising a first or second draft of a paper the correction of grammar and punctuation should be held off because the content of the paper and the expression of thoughts and ideas are what should be focused on.

According to the article, the critical difference between high school and college is that "high school education is designed to be standardized and quantifiable," while "college education is designed to be theoretical" (Fanetti 78). However, the authors do not lay the blame with either the high school or college writing instructors. Instead, the blame lies with standardized testing in high school curriculum. To meet standards, high school instructors must sacrifice certain types of writing for 'test writing', even though standardized test writing virtually disappears after high school. Thus, the skills needed for standardized test writing must be untaught in college. This seems wasteful for high school and college instructors. The article compares high school to a factory, in which the student is the product and standardized testing is quality control. Through the process, students become "mass-produced and measured everywhere by the same instrument" (Fanetti 80). To close the gap between high school and college, the authors' suggest that the purpose of high school should be redesigned completely. High school curriculum should view all students as college bound, whether they truly are or not. This will great better writing skills for all students and prevent extra work for secondary and post-secondary instructors. Also, we need to get rid of standardized testing completely since it does more damage than good, especially in the writing skills of students.

The title of the article, Understanding the College First-year Experience, basically explains the focus of the article. Kirk Kidwell summarizes the typical first year development of a freshman student as a time of purgatory. Successful students are able to go through four phases; dualism, multiplicity, relativism, and commitment to relativism. Through the phases, students lean to change from a passive style of learning to an active style of learning, as well as learn the "game: of college academia. In the game of college writing, Kidwell believes if students pass through the "academic hazing" or purgatory of the first year, they will learn the following two lessons. First, "College is not high school; one cannot just coast through" (Kidwell 253). Second, "The successful college student takes responsibility for his or her education" (Kidwell 254). These lessons are a good idea, but I feel they are too simple. Of course college is not high school. Stating such an obvious observation seems condescending towards freshmen students, regardless if they do or do not realize the fact. Also, the article summarizes the first year well, but it leaves out the more intricate parts of changing the issues freshmen students face. The missing issues include; how can teachers make the freshmen year less of a purgatory, is it possible to prepare high school students better through a change of curriculum, how do we help students to stay in college instead of dropping out, and how can we create awareness of college "is not high school"? These are crucial points that are completely missing from the article, thus the article is better for a basic understanding of what freshmen endure their first year of college.

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

After getting past the awesomeness of the fact that the author's name is Magnifico, this article concerns itself with issues of audience in writing. Much of the article is a literature review summing up the current research in the area and how it relates to her future research. Some of the areas examined are the cognitive and socio-cultural analyses of the effect of audience on writing. She finds that the audience can be a source of motivation and that writing with the audience in mind can inspire new comers to ask themselves the same sorts of questions as expert writers, such as what is it that they want to say, to whom are they saying it, and how are they going to convey this message.

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 article explores the reflective attitudes of college students concerning high school. College students are asked to reflect on whether their high school experience helped or hindered them. It also interviews teachers in high school and college to survey how each educator felt about their students and whether or not adequate methods were/had been empolyed to prepare them for college.

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 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 study addresses the levels of writing that are done in high school to prepare for college writing courses. This study assesses whether or not these activities of writing are adequate in prepping students for college. The questions asked are: What types of writing do high school teachers assign? Do high school teachers apply evidence-based writing practices? What adaptations do high school teachers make for struggling writers? What writing assessment practices do high school teachers apply? Are high school teachers prepared to teach writing? Do high school teachers believe that writing is important beyond high school? Do high school teachers believe students possess and will acquire needed writing skills?

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 focuses on the effects student-teacher relationships have on students' academic functioning and their level of disciplinary problems. It combines research from previous studies and combines first-hand research to develop an understanding of the differences between disruptive and non-disruptive students. They put a strong emphasis on how the research is conducted because the researched that they gathered was largely based on questionnaires and they proposed that interviews, or Teacher Relationship Interviews (TRI), could provide much more extensive and useful knowledge of the true interactions among teachers and students.