Ashely

Reading and Re-Reading Breuch

Dec 092015

Disclaimer: This post is my attempt to clarify Breuch’s theory on post-process and its connections to the writing v. composition debate.

Breuch writes, “post-process theory encourages us to reexamine our definition of writing as an activity rather than a body of knowledge” (98). She goes on to say that writing can’t be taught which supports her theory that post process shouldn’t be viewed as an activity. If it were viewed as an activity, then it could be teachable to some to degree. I agree to some degree with her and Kent’s perspective that writing is an “interpretive” act. There is a rejection of the system and process, and not of the act itself, which I think I can align myself with more. In this process, once joined with revision an act of composition may occur.

Perhaps therein lies the difference between writing and composition, if we consider writing a process separate from revision and such. What I mean is, if the document, or item is revised and treated like a new well developed project, then perhaps that is where the composition lies. The care in revising, and rewriting is the act or process of composing. A benefit of this separation may make it more digestable for first year students, who may be overwhelmed by the tasks at hand. Unfortunately it may over complicate what is already being asked of students, if they are told to consider several different processes, not while writing but afterwards too.

Grading/Ugh!

Dec 092015

I was under the idealistic impression that grading would be an opportunity for great reflection and development in student thought. I was wrong. I found that students weren’t reading my comments, just looking for final grades to either solidify their writing process or make small adjustments to get the grade they’d like. I also found that some students, usually those with the most potential were dealing with external challenges. Over the course of the semester I heard about the death of a grandparent, an overbearing mom, juggling of two jobs, and a car getting broken into! So when Bloom asks if grades should reflect factors external to the papers, like outside responsibilities my first thought is I have no idea. I would love to have a rigid standard by which I could easily grade my students. Despite my dislike of the grading for credit process, because I have to do it, it’d be great if that could happen easily.

It would be great to view each paper fairly, and objectively but with so much going on in my students lives, it feels impossible. She says “as graders we can be fair, but as human beings, we can never be objective.” i don’t really know that we can be fair. I mean, can I grade a student dealing with the loss of a loved one in the same way as a student who is not. Should I? Is it my place to assume that their work will suffer under the circumstances? I have more questions than answers obviously but that’s because I wasn’t prepared to deal with these types of dilemmas. I don’t know if you ever truly can be. I decided to offer additional time to students dealing with issues, if they asked it of me. Any suggestions, or similar dilemmas?

Becoming Edna

Classroom Praxis No Responses »

Dec 092015

My first round of grading student papers was exciting and scary. I felt so incredibly blessed to be participating in the development of student growth by reading and commenting on their well thought out work. The next round of papers, well not so much. The negative attitudes of bored (and sometimes angry) students started to show in their work. I realized that most were’t listening to me at all, and still couldn’t tell me what MLA stood for. Their papers were long and filled with confusing tangents. Between the poor writing (which I was sure was purposeful) and equally poor attitude I was being turned into Edna Krabappel.

There are some obvious differences between myself and Ms. Krabappel like our hair color. Also, the chain smoking, love affair with an overly dependent principal, and of course the chain smoking. But we both were frustrated with our students, annoyed with the work we were receiving and assigning, and in dire need of an outlet. While I noticed this transformation taking place, I decided to make some in class changes. I kept up with the random questions at the beginning of class. It interested my students and me too. I gave free writing, journal assignments (and participated in them), and asked students for suggestions and opinions. Every day wasn’t perfect of course since I still had my very own Bart Simpson, but I felt better and never started chain smoking. So yeah, improvement.

Super Teacher: Notes on Bizell

Pre-class Reading Response No Responses »

Dec 092015

In Bizell’s article, “Composition Saves The World” she discusses Fish’s book Save The World On Your Own Time. Fish’s thesis is that academics have one job, which is to teach the material of their discipline methods and objects of study. That in academia we should seek out academic truths. This method strikes me as mechanical and cold. I know that the work of an academic should be something, at lease according to administration, that is grade-able and objective. But I don’t believe writing has to be objective, which I read as a desire for it to be comfortable. I want the work that do as an academic (teacher and student) to be useful and practical. But I think the usefulness of writing, particularly in the age of digital social justice, may be aided by some uncomfortable discussion and writing.

I think that by limiting the role of teacher as en Enforcer of Truth (an obvious oversimplification of Fish’s thesis), the potential to push students thinking is limited. If conversation and writing opportunities in-class are limited, students won’t have the guidance to develop greater thinking and writing skills. Allowing diverse and “heroic” roles and topics in class validates the writer. Writers learn through writing that what they want to share matters to people who live outside their heads, their audience.

When Being “Lazy” Begot Better Results

News Item No Responses »

Dec 082015

Nicole Matos, Associate Professor of English, at the College of DuPage wrote “Why I Allow Writing on Abortion, Marijuana, and The Big Game.” In the article she writes that the,”…purpose of teaching is for the growth of the student, not for the entertainment of the teacher.” Her article explores the the idea by allowing students to write about controversial or “easy” topics, you can encourage critical thinking/stronger writing. An example of the kind of topics she’s referring to are:

The Best Friend/Boyfriend/Girlfriend and/or The Bad Breakup: What could be more important to any of us than writing about our loves and our losses — all the more so because many traditional college-aged students are living these narratives for the very first time? Many of our favorite novels, plays, and poems are some version of love/breakup stories.

In this example, Matos notes to the familiarity of this theme to traditional literary themes. Allowing this type of writing in the classroom along with an assignment designed to elicit a connection to another story would make for a great writing exercise.

In our writing program, the topics are already prepared, but a journal activity like this may be really useful to students. Matos says that, They are doing what David Bartholomae and other writing theorists call “joining the conversation.” It is my task to alert students to that and urge them to acknowledge that conversation in their writing.” I agree with her stance, that its the role of the educator to help the students join in and yet create a new conversation. My first is encouraging priority is always critical thinking, and what better way to encourage that than by allowing students to use their own ideas?

Seriously, is there a better way? Let me know in the comments if you think so.

Tumblr Fail

Classroom Praxis No Responses »

Dec 082015

Many moons ago (my freshmen year of college) discovered Tumblr. It was filled with cool people that I could discover easily by clicking through tags, with a user-friendly and attractive interface. It was not as “professional network-y” as I thought Facebook was, or as “trying way to hard” as Myspace had become. It was, and still is my favorite social networking site. Anyway, after my success with integrating Twitter into our classroom discussion I decided to do the same with Tumblr. This is the link to the blog [click]. I thought we’d design a site and discuss their work here. I failed, hence the title. But I think I understand why now:

I assumed the technology/digital media I found interesting was the same as my students.
I didn’t ask my students what technology/digital media they found interesting.
I didn’t sell the benefits of using a shared blog space in our ENC 1101 class very well (in retrospect I should’ve shown them this blog).
Many other things that still culminate into total failure.

Those were my shortcomings. I’d hoped that they would discover interesting blogs while perusing the tags, and maybe we could’ve created an interesting shared space. I thought it would be a great opportunity to have a anonymous digital format to offer critiques of everyone’s work. But, I was wrong. So here are the things I’m going to do try next semester:

Find out which social media applications my students like the best and figure out a way to merge them into our in-class discussion(s).
I won’t assume that they’ll like it just because I do. By it, I mean anything.
I won’t get discouraged just because an activity isn’t as engaging as I had hoped it would be.

Did ya’ll try anything with social media? How’d it go?

YouTube Stardom & Teaching Philosophy’s

Post-class Discussion Reflection, Uncategorized No Responses »

Dec 072015

Last week’s class was definitely one of my favorites. We had an open conversation about professional matters (post

MFA or PhD). I think these types of conversations are super important to have now, and should be happening more often. We had a discussion about the prospects of nabbing a tenure track position, and our teaching philosophy’s. Having the space to talk openly about our feelings, expectations, and desires is useful to me because I spend a lot of time wrapped up in theory. Sometimes I need an external push or pull to engage with the reality of the work I have signed up to do (and continue to sign up for). I’m sure that somewhere on campus these conversations may be happening more often, but I don’t know where (admittedly I haven’t been the most involved student).

*Also, I learned that I have a lot of support from my classmates if I should walk away from English/Academia and into instant YouTube stardom. Thanks Ya’ll 😉

What do ya’ll think?

How much “professional talk” do you all think we should be having? Are classrooms the appropriate settings for such conversations? If not, when or where should they be happening ( if at all)?

Bridging the Gap

Pre-class Reading Response No Responses »

Oct 142015

In Bartholomae’s article, “Writing With Teachers” he discusses power in the classroom and authorship of students. He says, “There is no better way to investigate the transmission of power, tradition and authority than by asking students to do what academics do: work with the past, with key texts; working with other’s terms; struggling with the problems of quotation. . . where one version of a student’s relationship to the past is represented with commentary of his own” (66)? Although I don’t totally disagree with this statement, I think that advances in technology allow us to move beyond this method. Traditionally the best way to learn was to study and mimic the writing style of those who came before us. Those writers, who dominated literary canons were usually very similar to each other (education, class, race, and gender). These people held/hold power because of the consistent study (see value) of the work that they produced. Academics have always “work[ed] with the past, with key texts; work[ed]with other’s terms.” As time passed, institutions began to recognize the value in the work of people who sat on the other side of the those people. I think the best way to transmit power to students, especially those who aren’t “like” the “classics” is by introducing them to works by people like them. By recognizing the value of people like them through critical study of their texts, students see and experience how possible non-standard authorship is.

I mentioned technology earlier, and should probably note its relevance here 😉 There are so many incredible non-standard voices that are contributing to important conversations that it seems useful to share with the students, people like them who are contributing to “text.” Of course this means expanding the definition of “text” and maybe reading voices via Twitter (maybe). In class I mentioned digital conversations and its relation to the articles we’re reading, and my students were really excited about it. I used #TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou to encourage them to recognize the power in their voices. I’m not sure if it worked. I’m not sure if this is clear. Are you still there?

But They Won’t Talk To Me

Classroom Praxis 1 Response »

Sep 222015

If you place a computer in front of the student in the illustration above, and a cellphone vibrating on the desk you’d have an idea of what my 8A classes look like. Since the first day of class countless GTA’s have warned me to keep my expectations of interaction low when dealing with Early Morning Freshmen. I, the Murray of optimism, knew that couldn’t be true. I knew that several consecutive weeks of echoed silence were a just a fluke (flukes)(if it keeps happening I guess its not a fluke at all but you know what I mean). I shared my growing frustration during colloquium and my classmate offered a simple technique she used to rouse her students (hey Stephanie!). While taking attendance she asks each student a question they can’t answer with a yes or no. Questions like their favorite color, movie do the trick. I tried this method and here’s what happened:

They responded to me! They all answered questions and even went so far as to ask if they could direct the questions to each other! I was so excited and completely surprised by the effectiveness of such a minor questions. Anyway, in regards to praxis. The excitement that students had gained did not waiver, mine either by the way. We discussed some global paper issues with increased energy and I saw a significant increase in class participation. I highly recommend employing some of these questions, and letting students help.

Drawbacks: If you’re like me, and choose to ask some students why, the activity can be time consuming.

Hey Ya’ll

introduction (test post) 1 Response »

Aug 252015

This is me holding a mug I should have bought 😥

How are you?? (I really want to know I am one of two Ashely’s in the class (hey Ashley!)

Here’s my academic & professional stuff:

In addition, I am an English MA candidate, writing consultant, and (obviously) a GTA at Florida Atlantic University. I graduated from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in 2013 (Go Rattlers!). In my free time I “blog,” and contribute to the digital lifestyle magazine Black Girl Fly in the Lifestyle & Culture section. I am planning on pursuing a PhD in English, concentrating on works of fiction by Black women authors of the (late) 20^th and 21^st century. My research interests include American history, queer studies, feminism/womanism, hip-hop studies, pop culture, and digital content creation.

Here’s some personal info:

I am the best big sister ever (often debated by my little brother).

I LOVE traveling (my avatar is a picture of me in New Orleans).

(Here’s a better view, I was on the verge of tears here)

I own an obnoxious (my mom’s opinion) amount of graphic t-shirts and backless earrings.

Kbye waving hand emoji

In Class Presentations: Theory Camp/Scholar OR Tech Tools	11/18 & 11/20
Optional Teaching Philosophy Draft Due for Feedback	R 11/19 @ 9am
No Class Meeting	11/25 & 11/27
Optional Writing Program CSI Draft; Theory Camp/Scholar OR Tech Tools Draft for Feedback	M 11/30 @ 9am
Writing Program CSI Final Due	W 12/2 @ 9am
Teaching Philosophy Final Due	F 12/4 @ 12pm
Theory Camp/Scholar OR Tech Tools Final Due	M 12/7 @ 9am
Outstanding Blog Posts Due	W 12/9 @ 1pm