“The first stage of Open Admissions involves openly admitting that education has failed for too many students” Mina Shaughnessey

“I cannot know for them what it is they need to free, or what words they need to write; I can only try with them to get an approximation of the story they want to tell” Adrienne Rich

One of my major objections to Basic Writing is that our students receive no credit for the class, though it remains on their transcript forever. Before teaching Basic Writing, I never thought about this concept. However, once I began to work closely with the Basic Writing students, I soon realized that this system seemed unfair; many of the students I taught were not lazy, but had not been given a proper education in writing. Essentially, the system had failed to give the students the education they deserved and the students were having to pay for the failure of the system. These students had been failed at the basic level of writing–transferring thought to text.

I was struck by the impediments Mina Shaugnessey provides and realized at the same time that these were common problems among my students. Spelling, punctuation,sentence construction and order, voice, grammar, are all reasons that my students have given for their “bad writing.” Perhaps this is the reason that so many Basic Writing courses emphasize grammar and mechanics instead of helping students develop their own writing style and voice. Basic Writing needs to help students become more confident in these areas, but to juggle all of these impediments alongside teaching students to construct an essay within a rhetorical situation seems a bit much for an instructor to cover in a 3 credit course. Nor is it what I would consider ideal to ask the students to undertake in a class for which they don’t receive credit. It seems that we need to consider a new model.

I had been reading a bit about the studio model over the past few weeks and this seems to fit into my ideal Basic Writing class. The studio model places students into the regular composition class and requires them to attend a 1 hour credit studio where they discuss issues that aid in the construction of their composition essays. I wasn’t sure that I liked this method until I read Adrienne Rich’s “Teaching Language in Open Admissions.” Rich writes:

“In order to write I have to believe that there is someone willing to collaborate subjectively, as opposed to a grading machine out to get me for mistakes in spelling and grammar” (Rich 202)

This passage enlightened me to the benefits of the studio model. Students are writing for their 1013 class, which provides them with a collaborative person to write for (the instructor, the peer group, etc.). At the same time, they receive the grammatical and rhetorical aid they need from the writing studio. Even if this studio is taught by the same instructor, the students receive their information and help on pertinent obstacles in a different setting. They are not dreading the instructor marking the comma splices in the final essay, but rather are getting help with their writing problems in their essays (which is advocated by both Clark and Hartwell). The studio model, therefore, would allow the students to create the “mess” that will become their essay in class while receiving the education they are expected to enter college with during the studio hour.

The studio model seems to create a Basic Writing utopia (which worries me; I wonder if I’m missing some aspect of this model that is terribly anti-pedagogical). Students receive credit for their composition class and get to stay with on track for their degrees. These two important changes would aid in removing the stigma from the Basic Writer. They also get the coaching in their weak areas that keeps me from arguing for mainstreaming the students.  Simultaneously, they learn to make a “mess” of their writing and worry about the polish of grammar and mechanics after they have transformed the mess into an essay. Even more, the students are no longer paying for the failures of their previous educational career.

But what makes this group even more different is that this is the first group of 18 year old students I’ve had who have not decided to vote based on the candidate that their favorite parent is voting for. For some strange reason, I have 15 students just barely old enough to vote and they are doing the unthinkable. They are trying to decide who to vote for.  I discovered this the first week of class when they bombarded me with questions not relating to deadlines and grading scales, but how they could register to vote and whether they have to  claim the school or their home as their voting precinct. I was floored. I’ve never had a group even ask me about this. I gave them the best advice that I could and sent them on their way. I assumed the political activity in my class was over.

It wasn’t. The second week of classes, my students returned. Our topic of discussion for the day was Ronald Reagan’s speech at the Brandenburg Gate (the famous “Tear Down This Wall”) speech. I had asked them to read the text of the speech and watch a few minutes of Reagan delivering the speech. Yes, I teach composition. No, Reagan is not out of place in a composition class. His speech oozes rhetorical appeals. It is also a wonderful means of teaching students how the modes of writing are not only aspects to writing individual essays, but can be be incorporated into one complete essay. As we discussed the speech, I noticed that they had not only paid attention to what I asked of them, but they had opinions on the speech. Yes, this is odd for a group of freshmen during the second week of school.

After Reagan’s speech, we turned to an article on Hurricane Katrina and several of my students got into a mild debate about where the blame for the disaster relief debacle should fall. One student, a native of New Orleans, was placing the blame not on the President, but on New Orleans politicians. This is unheard of in my classes. As I broke up the debate (to keep it from getting too heated), one of my student’s asked if I had seen Obama’s speech the previous night and we chatted for a moment on the speech. Then, another student asked if I knew when McCain was speaking. We Googled it. I took a risky step (now with only a few minutes left in the class period) and asked if they had made a decision on their next president.

One replied

I haven’t made up my mind yet.

This was followed by another reply of:

I want to hear more about their stance on the issues

A third student replied:

I’m waiting for the debates.

I was dumbfounded. My experience with freshman voters involves voting for the person daddy or mommy tells them to vote for. I asked for a show of hands for those who watched Obama’s speech and half the class raised their hands. Many of the others had missed it because they were in class. There were only two who were not interested. So, I posted the link on our Blackboard site. I’ve also posted McCain’s speech.

Then I started thinking about four things:

1. Civic Engagement
2. Critical Thinking Skills
3. Improved Writing
4. Reinforcing the Modes of Discourse

Civic Engagement

Students who are interested in politics are a rare group. They have beliefs that they are ready to take into a voting booth. As teachers, we cannot just cast aside this decision. We cannot-and should not-make decisions for our students, but we can help them to make their own decisions by allowing them to talk about their beliefs in a classroom setting.

Critical Thinking Skills

I can capture the political enthusiasm my students have and push this into their class activities in a way that means I can help them improve their critical thinking skills. This is important in their future and plays a role in our country’s future as well.

Improved Writing

I can assign extra credit work related to the election that asks students to write on their views as civic minded individuals. Through these writings, students can address the issues that are important to them while simultaneously improving their writing skills.

Reinforcing Modes of Discourse

Too many students come into the college classroom prepared to write a narrative or an argument without realizing the depth that various modes can bring to their writing. I can ask my students to look at how McCain and Obama use the modes to create powerful speeches. This mimics what I asked them to look for in Reagan’s speech, but puts it in a context in which they have show an interest. A topic interesting to a student is always going to engage them in their learning more than a topic they care nothing about.

So I’ve thought about this and made a decision. I’m going to allow my students extra credit writing opportunities throughout the semester. These will be brief one or two page assignments based around information they need to learn this semester. But they will also be based around various aspects of the political campaign. I plan to start by asking them to use the modes of writing to look at the two acceptance speeches. But as the semester goes on, I’m going to expand these options. I want students to have the chance to not only interact with the campaign, but also with new technologies. So, along the way, I will provide them with the option to record rebuttal speeches and send to me. (If they permit me, I will upload these to the YouTube account). I will give them the chance to design a webpage for the candidate they choose or to design a webpage discussing the two candidates. (If the students will let me, I will upload these pages to my homepage and link there when I can).

So, for starters, I’m teaching them the literacy of YouTube. I’ve created a channel specific to our class and posted the link on the class Blackboard site. I’ve also posted their first extra credit opportunity as a bulletin on the channel. It’s a bit like a semester long virtual scavenger hunt.

We will see how the students take to it. Check back for updates.

So, without further ado, I vow to return to posting for the summer this week. Stay tuned; it looks as though I’ll have a few spare hours on Saturday mornings to put serious thought into posting. Look for the first post of summer session this weekend.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for other great examples of how blogs work in education, check out my Comprehensive Exams Blog. It’s getting off to a good start.

Underlying the status of online publication as an inferior medium is probably the concern on the part of potential contributors that appearance in electronic media is not as highly regarded by the gatekeepers of tenure and promotion as the traditional hard-bound book and the article offprint, at least in the humanities.

As a doctoral student, I can say that Raben is right on target with this assumption. When graduate advisors provide advice to their unpublished students on how and where to seek publication and presentation, they often provide one very simplistic piece of advice. As emerging scholars, we should seek out publication anywhere we think we have a chance. We should consider the fact that it takes approximately three presentations (preferably at a regional or national conference) to equal one good publication. Now, advisors are clear that “good” publications come in the form of journals that are tangible to the reader (PMLA, for example). We are frequently steered away from the digital publications because they are “too new” and are considered “dangerous” or “careless publications.” Why? Well, as Raben puts it, they don’t know how to measure digital publications:

Books and print articles have been the stairs leading to the tenure, promotion, higher salaries and reduced teaching loads that are the system’s rewards for scholarly industry. When deans and even chairs are incapable of evaluating the content of such publications, they have been able to rely on the number of a candidate’s publications, their substance, the prestige of their publishers and (to a limited extent in the humanities) the number of times they are cited elsewhere.

Now, if the equation that I was provided for measuring publication (1 journal publication = 3 conference presentations) holds true, it seems that this formula becomes complicated if my vitae includes digital publications (x digital publications = 1 journal publication = 3 conference presentations). Unfortunately, nobody has given a value for “x,” so the equation remains unsolved. Unfortunately, this places tomorrow’s tenured faculty in a serious conundrum.

If, as graduate students, we steer clear of digital publications, strive for regional and national conferences, and desperately attempt to publish in PMLA, we will be considered successful in today’s tenure guidelines. However, we are not seeking tenure today; we are seeking tenure in the next decade. By then, I think that it is safe to say, digital journals will have a more solid standpoint in the vitae world. At the very least, tenure and promotion committees wil have the chance to fill in the missing value of “x” in their equation.

So, this leaves those of us with sparse publications in a catch-22. We can continue to follow the advice our advisors are providing and avoid digital publications, or we can make an attempt at this medium while it is in its infancy. We, as the future tenured professors of the world, have the chance to begin making a difference in the acceptability of digital media by submitting to these journals in their infancy. Now, the way I see it in the next decade, when we’re coming up for tenure, we have the chance to look like those who broke the mold, or we have the chance to look like those who follow the pack. Personally, I want to be a mold-breaker. The way I see it, we have guidelines for evaluating e-journals–we teach these evaluative criteria to our students–and we can use these criteria to determine exactly which journals we submit to. Is it really that hard to tell which journals will be seen as the ones with credibility? I don’t think so. It just requires us to keep up with a few of the issues and look at what they publish and who they choose to peer-review the journal. Don’t we do that with the print publications we submit to? I know I’m not sending an article on blogging in First Year Composition to Glamour, so why would I send it to the e-version of Glamour?

All in all, it comes down to us having the ability to use our own judgment to determine what and when we submit to. When it comes down to print vs. digital journals, I still believe that the number of print publications should outweigh the number of digital publications, but that does not mean we should simply ignore the idea of digital publications.

Let me leave you with a potential formula for the tenure committees to consider:

3 digital publications = 1 print publication = 3 conferences.

After all, are we not trying for each of these various forms of publication? While we should not have a vitae full of digital journals, we can have a few listed in our publications. We have years to go before tenure anyway.

Read the article

In “Worlds Apart,” Margaret Brenston argues that there is a serious gender divide when it comes to computer literacy involving men and women. Brenston explains that women prefer computers for more artistic meanings than men who wish to conquer the technology; women feel belittled when speaking to a male partner or friend about a technical issue with a computer largely because of these attitude differences. Brenston addresses an audience of avid computer users, both male and female, who must use computers on a regular basis. Her goal with this article is to demonstrate that the divide does exist, and to urge those who are computer literate to begin bridging the gap.

Though Brenston’s article is nearly twenty years old, and the divide between men and women has diminished, this speaks to the idea of control and power on the message boards. Women, in large numbers, have overcome the problem of technological power to an extent where they, as a gender, have created female dominated message boards. Though the article is not directly related to my study, it is helpful to be able to put a time frame on how far women have come over the past twenty years.

In “Metamedia Literacy: Transforming Meaning and Media,” J.L. Lemke argues that literacy must be defined within the genre in which it emerged in order to comprehend each of the social contexts that surround the literacy itself. Looking specifically at the potential of the interactive learning paradigm to aid in individual literacy acquisition because of the self-paced structure it provides, Lemke argues that by allowing individuals to control their own learning, they will pursue topics of interest and work through problems on their own which will further enhance their learning. Lemke speaks to the current generation of parents and educators by proving that interactive learning should not have as negative a connotation as the current society leaders give it. By proving that interactive learning works for improving literacy, regardless of the reader’s age, Lemke strives to persuade his readers to begin incorporating more interactive, personal learning into their lives.

In What Video Games Have to Teach us About Learning Literacy, James Paul Gee argues that while video games are often seen as a waste of time for children, they can be an entertaining tool to increasing the literacy of children. Gee focuses his work on how the use of various video games help children to create and comprehend their own identity, learn to retry problem areas until they have mastered the area, learn while being entertained, and begin to establish understandings of other cultures. As he explains these advantages, Gee posits thirty-six learning principles that emerge from studying video game literacy. These principles help his audience of parents and primary educators to see the various ways in which video games are advantageous to the learning process. Gee’s purpose is to help both parents and educators see how a limited amount of time spent with video games can help children and teenagers to improve their own learning skills without being completely conscious of what they are doing.

Lankshear, Snyder, and Green examine the impact of technology on literacy and learning using the 3D model as a holistic and culturally critical means of studying this trend in literacy. Asserting that literacy has three interconnected facets, the operational, cultural, and critical, the authors demonstrate that all literacies are socially intertwined and, therefore, none should be omitted from classroom usage. Lankshear, Snyder, and Green address potential literacy educators and provide a solid model for analyzing the usefulness of technology in the classroom. Through their model and analysis, the authors urge new educators to consider incorporating new literacies into their classroom.

While Lankshear, Snyder, and Green are focusing on the evaluation of medias for instructional use, their work extends well beyond the classroom. The 3D model they outline in their text allows for researchers engaged in any media to fully evaluate the media as a social literacy. This model proves highly effective for my study and will, likely, become the basis for the message boards I am examining.

In “Technology and Literacy Education in the Next Century.” the authors argue that technological literacy should be incorporated into the classroom as a standard in education to better prepare students for the new millennium workplace. Arguing that students are preparing for a more technologically-centric world and should be better prepared to enter this workplace with a better understanding of the key concepts to digital literacy, Labbo, Reinking, and McKenna explore the key concepts of digital literacy as they relate to technological trends in the workplace and the responsibility of instructors to prepare students to enter the real world with a better understanding of these technologies. Through the demand that students be prepared with these technological literacies, it is apparent that the authors address this article to technologically hesitant instructors. Demonstrating the ways that technological literacy has become essential to the workplace, and providing methods for incorporating technology into traditional lessons, the authors’ purpose of aiding these technologically hesitant instructors in teaching technology in their classrooms reveals itself.

In “Does Sense of Community Matter?” the authors explore the idea that a sense of community in online education classes is essential to the improvement of student participation and learning. Looking specifically at an online MBA program from a Midwestern University in which 28 faculty members and 20 students within the program were individually interviewed to determine how various teaching pedagogies and community building activities were carried out by faculty and received by students. The authors determined that though a sense of community created a stronger sense of learning among the students, a sense of community is not requisite to the students’ belief that they learn in the online environment. Xiaojing, Magjuka, Bonk and Lee address this study to active distance education faculty in order to aid in their comprehension of the necessity of community construction in their online classes. The purpose of the article is to present the fact that while communities may make students feel more comfortable with the online learning environment, they are not essential to furthering the education of students enrolled in a distance learning course.