Value #1: My students deserve to be seen. My TAs respond to each student, and students respond to each other, but students really need to hear from me, too (which I haven't always done in the past). I teach blended sections, so students only see me in a brick and mortar classroom once a week. The prompt this semester enabled me to do a lot:
The purpose of this discussion board is to get to know each other better, to reflect on your experiences with writing and learning, and to discuss your goals for this course.
What kinds of writing do you do the most? What do you enjoy the most? The least? What writing habits have worked well for you in the past that you can continue to employ this semester? What difficulties with writing (think broad--this can also include researching, studying, time management, etc.) would you like to overcome? What can we (your classmates, the TA, and Lyra) do that would help you meet your goals this semester?
Primary posts (due Wednesday by midnight): write a 200-250 word post introducing yourself to the class. Include the following:
- The things you shared about yourself in class (name, where you’re from, etc.)
- A reflection about your writing experiences (based on the questions above).
- A picture of yourself: How to add a picture to your Canvas profile
Secondary posts (due by class on Monday): Respond to the posts of two of your classmates, identifying things you share in common, if applicable, and offering feedback and strategies for how each classmate could meet his or her semester goals.
(Basic takeaways: we all struggle with writing and students are resources for each other)
Value #2: I know my students much better than I usually do this early in the semester. Reading and responding to their writing habits and challenges has enabled me to see who likes/ doesn't like analysis and research, who outlines, who prefers creative writing, who struggles with time management and distractions (don't we all!), and so forth. As evidence: I can identify at least one thing about most of my students in my first two sections, but don't feel as though I know anyone in my third section yet. Why? Because I haven't started responding to their Intro posts.
Value #3: Students get to know me. The more curious students will likely read more than one of my responses (especially after this weekend's announcement, in which I will encourage them to do so). Throughout the nineteen responses, I covered things like where I've lived, where I've traveled, what I like to write, and especially how I approach the writing and research process. Rumor and research has it that students appreciate seeing their teachers as human beings.
Value #4 (HUGE): Students get a very good sense of exactly what we're going to do this semester. If anyone reads through all of my responses, they will:
- know what the first paper is all about,
- understand why we're starting with summary and analysis and how that leads to the first paper,
- understand why I'm asking them to respond to each other's posts,
- understand the difference between "looking for" something specific in a text (e.g. rhetorical context) and responding to one of my questions versus responding to the actual ideas (such, such a good distinction to make...) and how that relates to the first paper,
- know that they're going to start researching their semester project next week,
- know that we will spend a LOT of time on research strategies and tips (which they all want),
- know that I am militant about concision and that I will help them with that,
- know that I help them with time management by setting multiple due dates for partial drafts and full drafts,
- know that they have a full week to revise their papers after the in-class draft workshops,
- know that they will write different kinds of arguments for different audiences, both academic and public (online), and
- know that I care deeply about what we do in this course and about making sure they learn what they need to learn to succeed in the rest of their college classes. More than once I mentioned that I revamp the syllabus and many assignments every semester, something I hope students understand works out quite well in their favor.
That's a lot of good information. Now, most of that is written in the syllabus and the "General Course Overview and FAQs" page on Canvas, our LMS, but I'd wager a bet that students will get more out of my responses here than whatever they skimmed (or didn't) last week. They theoretically read four or five syallabi last week. Reinforcing several concepts here in the DB, after they've gotten to know me and the class for a couple of weeks, will likely make a lot of my information stick.
Value #5 (GINORMOUS): I just solved one of the biggest mysteries of teaching writing.
I've been helping students with writer's block for seven years. I discuss my process--just sit down to write--and explain how that leads to figuring out what I think (Didion). Classic Elbow, Murray, Lamott--everyone. Puke drafts.
That's good advice--it's helped a lot of students. But after reading and responding to at least ten students who struggle with "just getting started" and "staring at the screen forever," reminding a couple of students about what they learned in Graff and Birkenstein last week (Burke/ Entering a Conversation), and then reading one student's post about what his wife (an attorney) recommends (start with your research notes), it came to me:
People, it's not about you. It is never about you. It's not about you, a blank screen, and your ideas.
You're writing to figure out what you think (yes) about other people's ideas.
Okay, duh--I talk about this all the time in class. But what I say in class probably isn't in students' minds when they sit down to draft.
Epiphany and Praxis:
Students, when you open up a new document for your papers, this is what you're going to do: you're going to copy your one-sentence summaries of all of the sources on your working bibliographies and paste them directly into the document. That's your starting place. You're going to look at these six ideas and then you're going to start your puke draft. Just. Write. Responses. To. These. Six. Ideas.
Cue forwarding ideas and synthesizing sources. Cue puke draft that doesn't feel as terrifyingly unorganized as a creative writer's puke draft.
After seven years, I just came to this now?? Yeah, yeah. The big takeaway that I will discuss on Monday with this class: I didn't get here until I had responded to everyone. It came to me within thirty minutes of getting up and doing something else. It was through responding ten times about the writing and research process, and reading the advice given to one of my students--that it all clicked. And that's what I mean by writing in order to figure out what you think.
I'm wicked excited about this! Maybe not revelatory to anyone else, but I know that some students simply can't just write cold, no matter what I say about writing just for your own eyes first (Stephen King), or putting a manilla folder over the screen so that you aren't staring at your own words, or whatever--this doesn't work for every student. I suspect this strategy will. Staring at the one-sentence summaries of arguments you're about to engage with is a concrete reminder that as a writer, you are never alone. You are always writing in response to someone else's ideas, just like I'm doing right now. You're not "defending" your own argument--you're developing it based on what you've learned. Pasting the one-sentence summaries on the page will reinforce this core concept--it will literally put the "They Say/ I Say" right there in front of them.
Brilliant.
Name one other exercise in which you can do all of the above without writing responses to every student that every person in class can see. I'd love to know what you do!
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