9.24 Teaching philosophies, invention, and engaging students

Rhetoric and Invention

We began our discussion of classical rhetoric by asking why Clark chose to take a historical perspective grounded in Plato and Aristotle in a chapter focused on rhetoric.  You pointed out both that it is the academic position - to discuss theory in light of the history of development of those theories, and that it was an "ethos" move => to establish her authority over the material.  You also pointed out that this approach provides us with a history of how others have solved writing/thinking/speaking issues associated with developing a flow of language.

General overview of Clark's general overview of classical rhetoric. In the introduction to her discussion of what classical rhetoric can tell us about invention - Clark reminds us that the understanding of what constitutes knowledge (or whatever it is we ought to be inventing- for that matter) has changed.  In the time of classical rhetoric. knowledge was "located in communal learning" and understood as "the collected wisdom of those who are knowledgeable" and it was related to "addressing issues of public interest that had generated some disagreement or dispute."  Today - knowledge is both more personal (in that it is conceived as located in one of many possible perspectives) and "out there" to be discovered or created, transferred or taken in.

After covering the rhetorical structures Clark identified as associated with processes for invention - examining techne, exploring the artistic proofs (ethos, pathos, & logos), tapping into the topoi (topics) = places in memory where knowledge is stored.  Within Aristotle's system the topics are definition, comparison, cause-and-effect, and authority.  

At this point we moved into more practical considerations associated with where/why writers need to resort to invention.  We paid particular attention to Clark's observation that "the kind of essay being written and the subject being addressed strongly determine the type of invention strategy that is most appropriate for generating material.  We made a list of circumstances where writers need invention strategies.  For the first two circumstances we brainstormed some invention strategies (see Clark's list  beginning on 58). The rest - are there for you to think about.

1. Not understanding the writing task

State in your own words what you have to do – get feedback

Look at a model text

Define key terms

Ask students to give examples of key terms or distinguish between different definitions

Have students write a little bit of the task and give feedback on whether they are on the right track (can do in groups)

Group brainstorming

2. Lack of motivation

You are an adult talk

Make task useful

Work with class dynamics

Focused freewrite

Why this is an impossible topic to write about

Cruise around the internet see what others have written

Write a list of topics you ARE interested in = make a connection

Re-craft the assignment + check with instructor

3. Stuck inside conventions or some other rigid rule

4. Unusable assumptions about composing process

5. Authority issues

6. premature judgment of writing product

7. not enough expertise in the subject area

8. unidentified focus (need to narrow/clarify ideas)

9. fear of taking risks

10. unwillingness to deal with chaos

11. unwillingness to incubate

Discussion of class observations:  We then took a look at the notes you have been taking in your classroom observations.  You are doing a great job on these.  Great details - with lots of information - and lots to think about in terms of how teaching works.  We focused on the past weeks' notes in terms of the question = what teaching moves lose/keep student attention.  We came up with the following lists.

Moves that lose students

reading aloud for more than a few sentences

sarcastic over-the-students'-heads jokes

too many similar moves in a row

lecturing

being rigid - too many rules

not being responsive to student culture

Moves that draw students in

dialog

jokes on self

rasing voice/change of inflection'

change up in the interaction dynamic (changing activities)

change up focus

asking questions

At the close of this discussion we asked how some of the rhetorical moves we are reading about in Clark might help us think about how to engage our students - and what kinds of  on-the-fly audience analysis that can help you make decisions about attention in the classroom?

For next class:

Read: Clark, Chapter 4 - Audience

Read: Sample teaching portfolios=> come to class with several links to portfolios that you think are exemplary (for particular audiences).  We will use these portfolios to identify the components that you will include in your portfolio, and to develop the standards for a "good" portfolio.

Bring a draft of your teaching philosophy for a workshop.

The discussion of your class observation notes will focus on the teacher's role in determining the classroom communication dynamic.  You will notice what the teacher says, does, implies; where s/he stands, how s/he talks/behaves - and the role those actions play in setting classroom dynamics and laying the basis for leanring talk that takes place within the room.  

We will also give Joe some feedback on the easy-bib presentation (he will go first! if that is OK with Joe - so we don't run out of time again).

We will negotiate who will take teaching responsibilities for which parts of the evening . . . 

GREAT CLASS tonight.  Thanks!   And see you next week.

Some things to talk about

Attending RNF.  You might want to consider submitting whatever you have done so far (or what you plan doing) regarding your thesis project as a work in progress for the Research Network Forum at the 4Cs conference.  Proposals are due by October 31 (see call for proposals), so you have some time to think about it.  Attending the conference will give you a chance to meet many of the theorists we have been reading -and to attend panel presentations on topics connected to your research - or just anything you are interested in.  Presenting your work at RNF will give you a chance to network with other researchers in your area - and to receive (and give) feedback.

Also =>Forwarded to me by a colleague:

On October 19, 2012 at 2PM at the CUNY Graduate Center English Ph.D. Program (365 Fifth Avenue @ 34^th Street, Room 4/409), the CUNY Mina Shaughnessy Speaker Series will present Sondra Perl (Lehman College & CUNY Graduate Center) and Charles Schuster (University of Wisconsin) in their discussion Composing a Life in Composition: A Story in Revision.  They will reflect upon their coming-of-age in the world of composition and rhetoric in the 1970s. From their insiders' views from the past 40 years, they describe their development as scholars and writers while tracing movements in comp/rhet. As leaders in this ever-evolving field, they illustrate how social and intellectual currents in this discipline shaped their careers and sustained an enduring friendship. Please join us for any or all of this event-filled day, and share these notifications with any colleagues who you think may be interested.

Also on that date prior to the speaker series, the WPA Metropolitan Affiliate will meet in the same place. During this meeting, we will discuss the affiliate’s plans in the upcoming year as well as other issues that concern this evolving group. Prior to the official meeting, people will meet for a get-together (buy-your-own) lunch hour around 12:30PM in a near-by location (TBA), and then we will convene for the more official meeting at the CUNY GC English Program lounge at 2PM. Please join us for lunch and the WPA Metropolitan Affiliate meeting on October 19.

So if you are in the NYC area on October 19th, please join us for this event-filled day.

9.17 Plan for course and Clark chapter 1

Philosophical discussion of the calendar.  It seems there was some missunderstanding about how to finish the calendar - but each of you did do some work on adding to, re-arranging, re-thinking the proposed calendar. In particular - you had to decide on readings (since none were listed) and you had to face the dreaded decision about what to teach first (without teaching EVERYTHING first).  Some of the particular suggestions you made were to put more readings up front, to introduce and start working on the portfolio earlier, to work on lesson plans and teachng earlier, and to start on the teaching philosophy early.  I will definitely work with these suggestions - and the overall plan for how classes will go (see below) should help us meet these expectations.  I think this collaboration on how to organize the calendar was extremely successful (and we might think about features of this work that made it successful - I'm thinking about the discussion of collaboration in the second half of class where you raised the problems mentioned by Clark and we talked about why some collaborative work doesn't go well for students).

Overall, as observed by Wayne, it is harder than expected to both provide students with background information so they can build on their experiences - and keep from overwhelming them.  The "chunking the semester" into parts method was not necessarily the best approach - but you gave it a try - and now have that to draw from if you ever need it.  Other strategies you raised were using model calendars, revising an existing calendar, and paralleling the table of contents of the text book for the course. So it sounds like you have some experience with this - and have some tools to tackle this job.

General plan for classes.  One "product" that came out of our collaborative discussion of the calendar was a general idea about how to organize classes.  We came up with an idea to integrate your planning and teaching into the class - throughout the term- so that you will have experiences planning and teaching lessons on the material we are studying.  The overall organization will be:

• discussion of a theory/ chapter from Clark (led by Sally or student), 
• presentation of component from portfolio + collaborative development of rubric for that component (Sally);
• workshop or lesson on writing that component (student led); 
• workshop/presentation on lesson prepared for College Composition (student led lesson + student led feedback on the lesson); 
• directed discussion of class observations (Sally + student led).  

The order of presentation may vary - but hopefully most classes will hit these components.  Toward the end - classes may shift toward a more workshoppy focus as you prepare your portfolio, and we may shorten up our meetings (to account for the fact that you have essentially put in double classtime because of the requirement to observe the composition classes).

So that will be the "theory" for our calendar.

Lesson planning.  I did an kind of impormptu presentation on the parts of a "lesson"  in response to the fact that Joe was going to give a presentation on easy-bib for his class next week.  There are many more detailed discussion of lesson planning and execution on the internet - and in composition texts (e.g. Thomas Newkirk's Nuts & Bolts, John Bean's Engaging Ideas).  You will be planning lessons beginning next week - so we will use some reflective thinking about what you did as a way to add to our "how to" list.

Pre-writing for writing philosophies.  Because - as you pointed out - the teaching writing philosophy underlies pretty much everything you will be doing for this course - and because your course calendar's indicated you wanted to move this item forward - we had atheoretical discussion of what a teaching philosophy included - and you did some freewriting for what you might refer to in your philosophy.  In the discussion of what a teaching philosophy includes (the points it hits), you came up with the following list:

• theorists who influenced your thinking 
• a re-casting/re-arranging of those theorists/theories so that they reflect your unique perspective
• your place within the "traditions" for teaching writing
• specific examples of how your would apply theory/
• explanation of the relationships between your philosophy and the actions you would take in the classroom
• perhaps an analogy or carrying metaphor to make your discussion coherent and artful
• discussion of important teaching issues and how your philosophy addresses those issues

As you read the sample teaching philosophies - think about what you want to add to this list. Also think about length - and what you will "cut" for the short version.

Sharing notes from composition classrooms.  You created invitation only blogs to post your notes.  Wayne and I will be discussing these - "mining" them for teaching issues - and developing a protocol for discussions of classnotes for the rest of the term.

For next class
Read:  Chapter 2, Clark = invention.  Be sure to read Rose's article at the end of the chapter.
Read:  sample teaching philosophies linked from the calendar
attend your composition class + take observational notes, and post them on your blog
Prepare a "lesson" for your part in next week's class

What we will do in class
Sally: discussion of Clark + discussion of teaching philosophies
whole class collaboration: develop rubric for teaching philosophy
Lewis:  lesson on invention (activity to develop/move forward with the teaching phiolosohpy)
Joe easy-bib lesson
Sally & Wayne directed discussion of notes

Sally will post the revised calendar


Great class.

9.10 Syllabi & calendars

Tonight was the introductions night - and we are introduced.  We talked through the syllabus & the calendar - so you should have an idea of our "contract" = how we will get through the business of this course, and  a general overview of course content.  The calendar is still quite general - since part of your first assignment is to "fill in the details" for our class by class schedule (see below).

Teaching mentors.  You chose your teacher mentors - and at this point you all should have been in touch.  Everyone seems well pleased with the arrangement - and we will see how it goes.

Ethnography, participant-observation, and taking fieldnotes.  We started class with a conceptual discussion of how to watch and take notes on your in-class experiences with your mentor teachers.  We established that you are NOT taking notes on what happens in the classroom as a way to document the RIGHT way to teach.  Rather, your notes should document particular teaching moves - and students reactions to and interactions with those moves.  By discussion your notes with your classmates and me - we will begin to think about what kinds of learning is set up by different moves, and you will start to form your ideas about which moves you would like to try out or integrate into your teaching repertoire.

I had you look at excerpts from an article by Robert Emerson, one of the co-authors of Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, one of the early textbooks to teach ethnographic observational/writing practices.  We zoomed in to pages 8-11 - the section on creating "jottings" while on site.  We then talked about some of the practical approaches to taking notes in an interactive research setting, and some of the ethical/interpersonal concerns.  This list should be in your notes. The article - and Emerson, Fretz and Shaw's book (available at Amazon) can be point of need references for you.

You then had a chance to practice taking ethnographic notes during the "creating a syllabus lesson."
You noticed that:

• it is impossible to write down everything
• you moved between taking "content" notes (what was said) and process notes (observations about the language, mood, setting, interaction dynamics = descriptions of HOW the communications took place).
• some "threads" of observations may turn out to be irrelevant (as in Joe's observation about noting where Sally walked as she spoke)
• it was often not clear what was relevant and what was not (since as Wayne observed the walking was sometimes linked to keeping class attention during periods of extended talk)
• shifting focus on the kinds of observations you wrote down allowed for a broad, robust description
• you remembered additonal information as you looked back through your notes and were able to flesh out your observations with "head notes"
• it is important to write up your notes as soon as you can
• you should always keep a copy of your original notes (make after the fact addtions in a different font/color or on a different document)
• and other things. . . 

Creating the course calendar.

Your next practice note-taking was on an interactive exercise where you worked as a group to create the calendar for the course.  This exercise did not go the way I envisioned it (yeah - it happens all the time).  It seems the 3 of you have very different ideas about where to start and what & how to teach.  And actually that is GREAT!  Here are some partially edited notes from the beginning of your discussion.

Joe sent doc

Lewis question about how to use doc

Wayne in referen ct to week 1 - suggested discuss teaching philosophy

Joe I'm still under the impression that we want to chunk notes file Joe was resisting working week by week - was suggesting that the group make a list of activities for each 1/3 of the course as suggested by Chandler

Discussion about how to proceed

Lewis Organize ideas in notes into weeks in lesson

Wayne so if we're looking at teaching philosophy

Joe moved that up to first week

Lewis what are the readings?

Wayne need something to read - to have something to think about

Joe - put at beginning & ending - justification

Wayne yeah put together - but have to have a reading - how would they know?  I think you need to put the two together

Joe I think that is for a later lesson

Wayne - can catch students cold - (without reading) give assigned reading.

Lewis - with Clark book, she goes through different steps - first chapter process. 

Joe - draw from own experience for first philosophy

Lewis - wants to draw from Clark -use first chapter for overview

So - your first work on this document was to negotiate the philosophical questions surrounding 1) what kinds of materials come first; and 2) how to work on the calendar.

By the end of class, we'd spent some time discussion what we will do in the course - and you had some practice taking the kind of notes you will take in your class observations.  So = good job!

For next class:

1. Meet your teaching mentor, attend class & take notes.  Bring an electronic copy of your notes to class - and we will post them in a way where we can all access them.

2. Read Chapter 1 in Clark.  This chapter provides an overview of approaches to teaching college writing and will set us up with common language for talking about the practices + issues you see in the classroom.

3.  Finish creating the course calendar.  Your calendar may look a lot or little like the proposed calendar I handed out in class.  We will negotiate the details in class.

4. As you observe your class and as you read Clark, think about the theories and practices that are central to the way you want to teach.  

In class we will: 

• negotiate the calendar
• do some experienced based talking/writing about your teaching philosophies
• identify main ideas/key vocabulary from Clark
• post your notes and do some analysis to give you some ideas about how you can use observation and reflective analysis as a way to explore your ideas about teaching.

Great class - see you next week.

9.4 Preparing for the first day of class

For those of you who were unable to attend the College Composition Orientation during August, you should stop by my office (CAS 324) to pick up your copy of the the orientation materials.

During our first class on Monday, September 10, we will go over the theory and practices outlined in the orientation materials - and plan or agenda for the up-coming term. I have selected a textbook (a collection of readings on teaching writing) and developed a sample/possible calendar, and I am willing and able to provide guidance in the areas you want to work on to strengthen your teaching.  That said - our first day of class will be devoted to creating the course calendar for THIS course - to ensure that you cover the materials that will best prepare you for your future teaching.

At the Orientation, I asked for a listing of College Composition Instructors who would be interested in having a graduate student intern (you) in their classes - and more than a third of the instructors volunteered - so they are very enthusiastic to have you in their classes.  During our first night of class we will also spend some time looking over the available schedules and matching you up with a Teacher-mentor.

This is the first time we are offering a teaching apprenticeship for our graduate students - and everyone I have worked with during development for the course has regarded it as a much needed addition to our writing studies program.  I am excited to get started - and looking forward to working with you!