assignments ENGL493 Seminar in Writing and Writing Studies: The Science (Pedagogy Presentations)
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THE SCIENCE: PEDAGOGY PRESENTATIONS
Perhaps up until this point in life you have never heard the word "pedagogy" before. That's pretty normal. I remember being in my MA, and people were throwing the word around like a baseball, and I felt like I was the only person in the room who couldn't catch. Turns out, "pedagogy" means, essentially, how you teach. More fully defined, pedagogy means the art and the science of teaching. So it is the thoughtful study of what are the most effective way to help students learn something in a classroom. The field of Composition is very, very interested in Pedagogy. In fact, there is an entire journal devoted to talking about it. This is closely tied to what is the real conundrum of teaching First Year Writing: it's really, really hard to tell if anyone is ever really learning anything in a writing classroom. And, if they are, you won't know it, because a student in a first year writing class leaves and doesn't come back.
So the first part of this two part project that will take up the majority of the first half of the semester is to read and present on various kinds of writing pedagogies, various kinds of ways of teaching writing. We will be working with Gary Tate et al's A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. Each of you will select a kind of pedagogy to be in charge of presenting to the class that corresponds to a chapter in Tate's edited collection. On the day you present you will be responsible for the following:
1) Instead of a reading journal, please have ready for the class a one page, single-spaced, typed summary of the chapter/pedagogy (yes, that means that you are not responsible for turning in a reading journal on the day you present). Be sure that it is clear what that kind of pedagogy values and who the important scholars and contributors to that pedagogy are. Be prepared to go over that summary, but also please don't just read your summary. Present the important points.
2) Please read and include in your presentation one of the articles/scholars mentioned in the chapter you are responsible for. If you are having trouble finding an article, I will help you. It shouldn't be too hard though. Share with the class what you learned from reading the primary source--how it shaped your thoughts on this kind of pedagogy in particular.
3) Please have a writing experience planned that the entire class will participate in that embodies that pedagogy, lets the class experience writing under that particular kind of pedagogy, with those assumptions about texts and writers and how writers produce texts and for what occasions.
4) Please include on the back of your one-page, single-spaced summary of the chapter, five discussion questions that you believe will generate very good discussion among your classmates. You should run the questions by me before class. NOTE: I would suggest that one of your discussion questions tie in to the writing experience you have planned for the class.
Your presentation should be about ten to fifteen minutes long, excluding class discussion. Please don't be boring.
Perhaps up until this point in life you have never heard the word "pedagogy" before. That's pretty normal. I remember being in my MA, and people were throwing the word around like a baseball, and I felt like I was the only person in the room who couldn't catch. Turns out, "pedagogy" means, essentially, how you teach. More fully defined, pedagogy means the art and the science of teaching. So it is the thoughtful study of what are the most effective way to help students learn something in a classroom. The field of Composition is very, very interested in Pedagogy. In fact, there is an entire journal devoted to talking about it. This is closely tied to what is the real conundrum of teaching First Year Writing: it's really, really hard to tell if anyone is ever really learning anything in a writing classroom. And, if they are, you won't know it, because a student in a first year writing class leaves and doesn't come back.
So the first part of this two part project that will take up the majority of the first half of the semester is to read and present on various kinds of writing pedagogies, various kinds of ways of teaching writing. We will be working with Gary Tate et al's A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. Each of you will select a kind of pedagogy to be in charge of presenting to the class that corresponds to a chapter in Tate's edited collection. On the day you present you will be responsible for the following:
1) Instead of a reading journal, please have ready for the class a one page, single-spaced, typed summary of the chapter/pedagogy (yes, that means that you are not responsible for turning in a reading journal on the day you present). Be sure that it is clear what that kind of pedagogy values and who the important scholars and contributors to that pedagogy are. Be prepared to go over that summary, but also please don't just read your summary. Present the important points.
2) Please read and include in your presentation one of the articles/scholars mentioned in the chapter you are responsible for. If you are having trouble finding an article, I will help you. It shouldn't be too hard though. Share with the class what you learned from reading the primary source--how it shaped your thoughts on this kind of pedagogy in particular.
3) Please have a writing experience planned that the entire class will participate in that embodies that pedagogy, lets the class experience writing under that particular kind of pedagogy, with those assumptions about texts and writers and how writers produce texts and for what occasions.
4) Please include on the back of your one-page, single-spaced summary of the chapter, five discussion questions that you believe will generate very good discussion among your classmates. You should run the questions by me before class. NOTE: I would suggest that one of your discussion questions tie in to the writing experience you have planned for the class.
Your presentation should be about ten to fifteen minutes long, excluding class discussion. Please don't be boring.
