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assignments ENGL301 Writing & The Teaching of Writing: LT sample journals/in-class

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LEE TORDA
310 Tillinghast Hall
Bridgewater State University
508.531.2436
ltorda@bridgew.edu
www.leetorda.com
Fall 2017 Office Hours:
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M 12:30-1:30
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7Lives on the Boundary 1-3, 4-6

​
I won’t lie. I find Mike Rose’s story both sane and humane and, in some ways inspirational. I appreciate his full on belief that a really great teacher can make a real difference in a student’s life. I do. And I think that most of my students want to be that teacher for other students. But, I also believe this: you can’t save all your students. You can’t be McFarland period. You can’t be Carruthers all the time to all students. You’ll kill yourself if you do. And I’m not that person. I also don’t think that being a savior is entirely right for students. This is why I always talk about assignments. Because if you say to me that if you can reach out to just one student, you’ll be happy with your job, I’m going to tell you to find a different one. Because you need to try to work with all of your students. Every single slack ass one of them. 

My other critique of Rose is more about something he can’t control. I believe that when he wrote this in 1986 he might have believed that what he was writing would resonate with every student (and despite this classes reaction, I often find this to be the case). But in 2017, I can not help but recognize that, despite his poverty as a child and even his generation 2.0 status, he had a great deal of privilege as a young white male in the 1950s. I know people don’t like it when you say that, but it’s still true. If he had been, say, a young black woman in the south at that same time, what would his story have been? Well, she wouldn’t have ended up at Loyola, that’s for sure. But, even today’s young students who need to over come first generation, socio-economic and color and gender barriers simply have a different landscape. It’s not become easier to overcome poverty in our country; it’s become harder. So I don’t even know if this is the story you could tell today. 

Finally, one thing that he never really talks about his how his particular education is a kind of education that is, to a certain extent, not really diverse. There is certainly value in the great books education he is describing here, but, embedded in that education is a lot of exclusion and elitism. He could probably see himself in those texts, but I’m not sure that is really the case for all students. There are limits to this kind of education. 

Top Five Really Big Ideas:  
1. We profoundly misunderstand what  “remedial” means—or what a deficit looks like. This is true about a general public. This is true about the US historically. This is true for many of us who teach in classrooms. 

2. We profoundly under-understand the role poverty plays in depriving students of a good education. It is not just a poverty that means you go to a bad school. It also means that you have nothing around you that inspires a passion in you. 

3. A humane liberal education, as espoused by the McFarlands of the world is less about content as it is about the process of engagement. It is authentic reading and authentic discussion that creates the file in Rose and the other students in his classroom. 

4. Inspiration does not trump academic preparation. When Rose gets to Loyola, he does not have the academic skills to manage this new landscape. This is not to be confused with intelligence. And this is related to what I want to say next:

5. We have profoundly useless measurements of whether a student is a thoughtful, capable thinker (not intelligent—a totally different thing and not just a good student; you can be absolutely a dumbo and do well in school). 

6. Students are not the only people at fault for their lack of success. This connects to many things that we are seeing here. Poverty of home life and educational 

7. Access—who gets to go to the good school; who gets to go to the 

8. Teaching is a powerful thing. 

9. Educating in a democracy is hard and joyous at the same time 
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  • Home
  • ENGL102
    • ENGL 102 Class Discussion Board
    • ENGL102SYLLABUS
    • ENGL102 PORTFOLIOS/Research Notebook
    • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENT: Class Profile Page
    • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENTS: Reading Journals
    • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENT: OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH PROJECT >
      • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENT: POSITIONING YOURSELF
      • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENT: Locating & Evaluating part I
      • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENT: Locating & Evaluating part II
  • ENGL389
    • ENGL 389 CLASS DISCUSSION BOARD
    • ENGL 389 CLASS PROFILE PAGE
    • ENGL 389 SYLLABUS
    • ENGL389 Reading Journals
    • ENGL389 Writer's Notebook.
    • ENGL389 WORKSHOPPING
    • ENGL389 Author Presentation
  • ENGL 513
    • ENGL 513 MONDAY UPDATE
    • ENGL 513 DISCUSSION BOARD
    • CLASS PROFILE ENGL 513 COMP T&P
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    • ASSIGNMENTS ENGL 513 COMP THEORY & PEDAGOGY: READING RESPONSES
    • ASSIGNMENTS ENGL 513 COMP THEORY & PEDAGOGY: Literacy History
    • ASSIGNMENTS ENGL 513 COMP THEORY & PEDAGOGY: Pedagogy Presentations
    • ASSIGNMENTS ENGL 513 COMP THEORY & PEDAGOGY: Reverse Annotated Bibliography
    • ASSIGNMENTS ENGL 513 COMP THEORY & PEDAGOGY: ETHNOGRAPHY/CASE STUDY
    • ASSIGNMENTS ENGL 513 COMP THEORY & PEDAGOGY: final project
  • Previously Taught Classes
    • ENGL 102 CLASS DISCUSSION BOARD
    • ENGL 301 policies >
      • ENGL 301 CLASS UPDATE
      • ENGL 301 SYLLABUS
      • ENGL 301 PORTFOLIOS
      • ENGL 301 READING JOURNALS (assignment)
      • ENGL 301 BOOK CLUB (assignment)
      • ENGL 301 INTERVIEW WITH A TEACHER (assignment)
      • ENGL 301 FLASH MENTOR TEXT MEMOIR (assignment)
      • ENGL 301 RESEARCH IN TEACHING DIVERSE POPULATIONS (assignment) >
        • ENGL 301 RESEARCH IN TEACHING DIVERSE POPULATIONS (instructions & sample annotations)
      • ENGL 301 ASSIGNMENT DESIGN (assignment)
    • ENGL 202 BIZ Com >
      • ENGL 202 Business Writing SYLLABUS
    • ENGL 227 INTRO TO CNF WORKSHOP
    • ENGL 298 Second Year Seminar: This Bridgewater Life
    • ENGL406 RESEARCH IN WRITING STUDIES
    • ENGL 493 THE PERSONAL ESSAY
    • ENGL 493 Seminar in Writing & Writing Studies: The History of First Year Composition >
      • ENGL 493 Assignments: Annotated Bibliography & Presentation
    • ENGL 511 Reading & Writing Memoir
    • DURFEE Engl101
  • BSU Homepage
  • ENGL102 ASSIGNMENT: Locating & Evaluating part II