Writing Assignment, Mon, Aug, 29

Question 1: What are the central points in these pieces?

Teachers comments and feedback on students’ writing give affect the students’ attitude and motivation on their future writing. If the comments are specific and thoughtful, the students will be encouraged and show positive attitude to revise their writing. But, if it is overcommenting or not specific comments to guide them how to fix, they will be overwhelmed. Also, rigid rules of writing, grammar errors and inflexible plans are restraining students’ production in writing. Students who struggle with writing a paper in college confront cognitive objects that prevent them from producing their writing. Those rules vary depending the student, like “grab your audience in the first paragraph,” “grammatical error free,” “DNA structured outline,” and “inflexible problem solution.” Non-blockers who do not have the writer’s blocks hold flexible attitude/approaches toward their writing. They tend not to restrict the composition process by sticking with one textbook wise approach or building a concrete outline before start writing. 

Question 2: How are these points relevant to teaching?

In teaching context, teachers need to ensure not to address writing saying “you have to stick with one approach, build a concrete and detailed outline.” Although it is, I think, nothing bad that teachers introduce there are different kinds of approach on writing, like build an outline first, think about your audience or attention to grammatical errors, but do not push the students to stick with one approach. As mentioned in Teaching Composition, the rules and plans are mutable and can be modified by providing feedback on their writing or suggesting flexible alternatives. To give flexible ideas on writing to students, I think, teachers may give an experience to have them read other types of readings or classmates’ writings. Also, when teacher write their comments on students’ paper, an encouraging tone must be applied to the comments and specific advice.

Here is the citation from Responding to Student Writers I want to keep in mind.

Our role as teachers is engage with students by treating them as apprentices, offering honest critique paired with instruction; and for students, it is to be open to the teacher’s comments, reading and hearing these responses not as personal attacks or as isolated moments but as instructive and portable lessons to take with them to the next draft or assignment. (Summors)

Writing Assignment 1, Wed, Aug, 24

The readings from Johnson, TC taught me what I, as an English composition teacher, have to pay attention when I read students' writing, and how to guide them to the basics of academic discourse. Reading the students' essays and the analysis in the chapter 1 reminded me that many students in a freshman composition course wrote just their experience in their essay, but they did not expand them to something beyond the experience. Better essays have something distinguished from ordinary essays, not just stating their experience, but also unique ideas that came up from students’ experience or conventional points of view. It cannot necessarily be said that an essay which has a commonplace is bad, as long as the essay includes an analysis or argument against the commonplace. I want to keep in my mind that a basic or lower-level writer is not necessarily a writer who makes sentence-level errors frequently. The more difficult vocabulary a writer tries to apply in writing, the more syntactic difficulties appears to the writer, which the writer may not manage by oneself.

I was very glad to know Elbow’s theory, “ignoring audience can lead to worse drafts but better revisions.” This will help students find their ideas and synthesize them as a brain storming when they start their writing. I found it very interesting the interaction between private writing and social writing. Through working on a private writing, the writer can write reflectively for themselves without interaction with others, but the process also motivates and prepare the writer to tell own ideas and thoughts to others.

I was aware that it is usually difficult to shift to academic writing to high school writing, and motivate students to produce good writing with materials. Through Sommer’s reading, bringing personal connection to writing course helps students start writing and motivates them to keep their interests in writing, like Jeremy’s case.