Day 2: Espresso

Day 2 went by in a blur -- I was really really jazzed up by a venti iced americano.

I love teaching 107 the same quarter I teach the graduate course on comp pedagogy -- it reminds me of best practices and what I value. Having 660 right before 107 might be a very good thing.

Okay, what we did on Wednesday:
Last year's TAs had success with using Adler on marking the text so I wanted to try it out myself this year. I had originally imagined introducing Adler and my plagiarism handout during the first day (this is all important to begin with . . .), but I took a breath and realized that overloading the students' circuits on the 1st day wouldn't actually help, so I decided to move Adler to the 2nd day and the plagiarism stuff to next week. I had the idea of opening with Adler and then having us all practice on the first page of the B and P Intro they had read for today, but I decided that it was more important to start with the qw about the Intro. I decided this because I wanted the students to experience what this class will be like: you are expected to read and have a response to the readings; your contributions are valued, etc.

So, I started the class with a qw: What surprised, interested, or puzzled you in the Introduction? How do Bartholomae and Petrosky characterize reading and writing? Find a place in the text you would take us to start a discussion.

Then, we got in a circle and discussed their responses. The students said they were really surprised both by what B and P said about reading and writing and by how the Intro itself was written (how cool that they noted that!). One student talked about how different it was than intro to textbooks; he called it "unconventional." I used their comments about how reading and writing are discussed in the Intro to say that difficulty and failure are okay and part of learning and that the class (especially with the built in revision process) makes it possible to "fail" and still end the class with a good grade.

I segued from B and P on active reading and marking to Adler. I asked student volunteers to read parts of Adler aloud (I projected it) and then I asked them what kind of marks they already used and why. I kind of got ahead of myself -- damn espresso -- my lesson plan had been to start with their knowledge and then reinforce it with Adler. Here's how I had it written in my plan: · Active Reading
o How many mark your books? What kind of marks?
o Why is marking important?
o Adler

Oh well.

Finally, I had them do a in-class essay in response to this prompt: o Reflect on and describe your history with reading and writing. What experiences, good or bad, stand out for you? Why? What have you recognized about yourself as a writer? What would you like to work on in your writing?

Before they wrote I explained I would read but not grade the essay and that I used it to get a sense of where they are currently as writers. I also told them they would have the opportunity to read and reflect on this piece at the end of the course.

Thanks to the conversation we had at our TA meeting, I decided to ask the students to try to write without stopping for 30 minutes. I explained this was a way to work on your "writing muscle." I said that if you run out of things to say, draw and line and write about anything, including being blocked. I was pretty excited to see a couple of students actually did this and were able to say more things about their literacy histories! Hurrah!