Sample syllabus assignment

Reading from previous week:

"On Audience and Composition" Lisa Ede

Assignment:

Select a newspaper article from this week's campus paper. Write a two-page analysis of the article that you have selected. Summarize what you think the author's message is to the audience. Be sure to identify the intended audience and provide specific examples of how the author has communicated with this audience in mind. Give some examples of how the article could be changed to more effectively convey the intended message to the audience you have identified.

Learning Objectives:

Understand the important role audience that plays in the rhetorical situation.

The reading will give students an overview of how audience has historically been handled in the composition classroom and introduce varyious perspectives on the importance of audience in the composition process. The assignment will challenge the student to envision a specific audience, which is a task that the article indicates is difficult for many young writers.

What is Literacy?

What a tricky question! Answering this question with any degree of specificity is to embark on a very slippery slope indeed. Literacy has had different meanings from one time to the next. It is transient and malleable. Just think about all of the different ways that the word literacy can be used. When we say someone cannot read we call them illiterate. When someone is computer savvy we say they are computer literate. We talk about cultural literacy and personal literacy, and in each of these instances the term literacy means something different. In a broad sense I would describe literacy as one's ability to make and communicate meaning.

Someone who is "illiterate" in the traditional sense (meaning that they cannot read or write) may be very culturally literate. Kathleen Yancey's article "Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key" highlights the changing nature of literacy. How literacy is defined is changing with the dawn of new technologies. Being literate can no longer be defined as one's ability to understand the written word, because there are so many types of literacy. Our definition of literacy can no longer be confined to mean someone who possesses one particular set of skills.

If literacy is one's ability to make and communicate meaning, what does this mean for our technologically advanced society? In future generations will illiterate refer to people who cannot communicate using technology? Our ability to master new modes of communication may be the key to literacy in the future, or perhaps that time has already come. Yancey gives us something to think about when she says "changes to literacy are limited not by technology but rather by our ability to adapt and acquire the new literacies that emerge" (Yancey, 816).

Yancey, K (2011). Writing as a mode of learning. In V. Villnueva & K. Arola (Eds.), Cross-talk in Comp Theory (pp. 791-826). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Review of Mariel’s Extended Analysis on Kenneth Bruffee

I chose to review the podcasts created by Mariel on Kenneth Bruffee. Mariel showed a level of mastery of this mode of composition that I hope to emulate in the future revisions of y own assignment. The sound quality and editing was superb, and the introductory music was a great touch. One thing that I noticed in Amelia’s podcast, that I failed to do in mine also, is to introduce the speaker’s background. I think that introducing yourself as a graduate student and teacher would be a good touch, and may engage the listener and reassure them of your experience in this field.

Kenneth Bruffee’s background was discussed in a great amount of detail in part one. I found the historical context to be very interesting and a good way to introduce how his ideas were different than those of previous generations.  In particular, I found the link between open admissions and his ideas about knowledge to be very enlightening, especially after reading his article “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.’” It is not hard to see where the concept of abnormal discourse originates. One suggestion that I would make is to add a brief discussion about abnormal discourse and how this connects to his idea that knowledge is something that changes.

I also feel that the third section gave a good overview of how Bruffee affected the field as a whole and his impact on composition theory. I think that this section could be expanded to include your personal teaching experience. Part three would benefit greatly from a description of how you see the work of Bruffee in your classroom, and how collaborative learning is perceived and/or viewed in the high school environment today. You could also describe how you see the legacy of Bruffee reflected in our current classroom situation. For example, the assignment of blogs and our review of each other’s work in these blogs is a direct reflection of Bruffee’s ideas.

MOO or Skype?

There are definite advantages to utilizing the latest technology in the classroom. It can offer students their first experience with new technology and make them more "tech savvy." In this debate, the question is whether MOO (a fifteen year-old technology with text-only capabilities) can offer more to the classroom experience than Skype (the latest in video communication technology). I tend to lean on the side of the text-only technology for two reasons: first, it forces students to communicate their ideas in written form both quickly and effectively. Second, it offers students a "safe" environment where everyone can communicate anonymously.

As we have read from several writers so far in our assigned readings, writing requires practice and the more a person writes, the more experience they gain in communicating ideas. In an age where email is the primary form of professional communication, it is more important than ever to be able to communicate nonverbally. Further, Janet Emig in "Writing as a Mode of Learning" claims that writing is a unique form of learning in that it develops higher cognitive functions by utilizing the skills of "analysis and synthesis." The same cannot be said of verbal communication, which does not require the same focus on content, syntax, grammar, etc.

It is also easy for students to remain anonymous in a text-only environment. Anonymity in the classroom can be advantageous by allowing students to be known for their ideas, and not physical appearance or other identifying factors. Michael Spitzer claims that nonverbal communication in the classroom ensures that "those people with powerful ideas will have more influence than those with powerful personalities." The text-only environment removes evidence of social and political differences, and allows the student's work to be experienced on a level playing field.

While video-conferencing and Skype-like technologies have their benefit and uses, I do not think that the classroom is always the best place for them. In this course, where the students are expected to move into a teaching role in the near future, the MOO system offers a unique opportunity for us to develop the skill of getting to know each other through our writing. This is a valuable skill because one-on-one time between student and teacher is often limited, and getting to know the students personally can be challenging.

Emig, J. (2011). Writing as a mode of learning. In V. Villnueva & K. Arola (Eds.), Cross-talk in Comp Theory (pp. 7-15). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. 

Spitzer, M. (1986). Writing style in computer conferences. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communications, 29, 19-22.