Well, that depends.
What's my objective? To stick to my syllabus? To frontload the theory before students tackle the first major paper? Or to ensure that students are learning the material in a manageable way?
Hm, I don't know. The last one seems like a laudable goal. Some might say it's the only important goal up there. In fact, I'm one of them.
Look: the stuff I teach is harder than students expect. It's harder than most people imagine when I tell them what I teach. First-year college writing: two parts process writing and one part research skills blended with peer review and served with a slice of grammar and punctuation?
Sure, I do all that. I also teach argument theory, digital literacy, and rhetorical awareness and analysis. That doesn't happen quickly, as I am grudgingly remembering this week.
The first two weeks were devoted to rhetorical context and summary. As I stand here at the end of Week 3, I'm rethinking that unit--I'm asking them to summarize an argument before they even know how an argument works. Whatever--I'll revisit that at some point. I need them writing within the first week, and the articles I choose at the top of the semester are easy enough to digest:
We start with two sample summaries of Gabriel's 2010 Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age. Then, groups of students summarized either Steve Kolowich's 2011 What Students Don't Know, Peg Tyre's 2012 The Writing Revolution, or Josh Keller's 2009 Studies Explore Whether the Internet Makes Students Better Writers.
This past Monday, they submitted an individual summary on either Carr's Is Google Making us Stupid, Shaahin Cheyene's 2012 How the Internet is Changing our Brain or Clive Thompson's 2012 Is Google Wrecking Our Memory, which they'd already discussed in a Lyra Classic: an overcomplicated discussion board prompt that asked them to put their article in conversation with Eli Pariser's Ted Talk on Internet Filters (everyone needs to watch this--everyone--and assign it in class. Do it because we all need to know this, and do it because the discussion that this generates is brilliant).
I asked them to submit these summaries as an ungraded assignment. I've never done this before--it's usually associated with maybe ten lousy points--but I like it. I told them that this was their chance to receive feedback from me before handing something in for a grade. Makes sense, right?
Back to my dilemma: I introduced stasis theory last Monday, which is easy enough to do in fifteen minutes. The trick is to follow up with it well in the next class. This went okay yesterday, but I was more distracted by the fact that students clearly didn't grasp rhetorical context--that thing I've been pounding every day for three weeks now--and had to. I spent more time on that by tying it in with the other big piece of yesterday: simple online research skills. It was an online synchronous day in AdobeConnect, so we all hit Google and searched for a few things. We got to reinforce Pariser--"Who has a different results page than I do?" and then go over simple things like using quotation marks and filtering for dates (2011..2014). And then we got to the good stuff, which I hadn't even planned on:
"Okay, before I even click on this link--what do I know about this article? Here's my results page, and I've taken three nanoseconds to decide I want to click on this one. Why? What am I looking for?"
The most important clue: "Where is it published? What can we detect from the website? That's the first step. What else? Date. Okay. Let's click on it. Here's the link in the AdobeConnect chat box so that you can go to this article on your own computer. Alright, let's check this out. I've never read this article before. Let's pretend that we've all been assigned a short, 750-word assignment about blended learning in college. A basic expository piece to be published in The Diamondback next week. Take a few seconds to scan this. Would you use this source?"
This was not in my lesson plan. But this was the perfect way to introduce (introduce?!! Then why didn't I do this on Day 2?) rhetorical context. Now they get it (I hope. I should still reinforce it Monday so that it totally sticks...). But in essence, they've got it. Great. So then the trick was to bounce from there to stasis theory, picking up from Monday, which I thought they could nail as preparation for...
...Toulmin theory this Monday?
I must be Out. Of. My. Mind.
Stay tuned for Major Syllabus Adjustment #1 in Spring 2014.
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