Few Composition methodologies
have impressed me like the concept of using student writing as
classroom texts. I love the organic, stripped-down, boot camp
feeling I get from William Coles' The Plural I or Bartholomae
and Petrosky's Facts, Artifacts and Counterfacts. In the
former, Coles uses no other outside texts, and chooses student papers
from the previous week for whole-class case studies for what works,
what doesn't, and for fuel for the revision factory, since all
students are reminded through reading colleagues' papers of the need
to revise to improve.
In Bartholomae and Petrosky's
model, student autobiographies are revised, edited, compiled and
actually published in a hardcopy volume; this anthology of
autobiographies, then, becomes the classroom text for the ensuing
unit, as students read and write about student writing, student
thinking and student lives. I suspect the
student-text-as-publication resonates with me especially because I
first learned to love writing through my contributions to my school
newspapers. Tough though it may be, students gain a great sense of
identity knowing their work is being read, critiqued and possibly
admired.
More important, this raises the potential for students to take their own work more seriously both in style and content; the group reading and assessment provides powerful whole-group reflection that, conceivably, can be received as more palatable and informative than, say, a single student's feedback during peer review, or than even a teacher's solitary response. Nowadays, many colleges benefit from campus websites like iLearn, and most students have some access to the Internet, so blogs can simplify the process of publishing student work for the benefit of the writing class.
More important, this raises the potential for students to take their own work more seriously both in style and content; the group reading and assessment provides powerful whole-group reflection that, conceivably, can be received as more palatable and informative than, say, a single student's feedback during peer review, or than even a teacher's solitary response. Nowadays, many colleges benefit from campus websites like iLearn, and most students have some access to the Internet, so blogs can simplify the process of publishing student work for the benefit of the writing class.
As exciting as
this teaching method is, since I've never taught such a class myself,
I'm curious What does it look like?, that is, beyond Coles,
Bartholomae and Petrosky. What kinds sorts of writing themes work
best? Are there any applications beside Coles' model of reading and
discussing, or B & P's publication, or this class' blogs?
My initial reading list is:
My initial reading list is:
The Plural I, William Coles
Facts, Artifacts and Counterfacts, Bartholomae,David and Petrosky, Anthony
"STUDENTS’ TEXTS BEYOND THE CLASSROOM:Young Scholars in Writing’s Challenges to College Writing Instruction" (pp. 118-128) From:Teaching With Student Texts
Doug Downs
University Press of Colorado, Utah State University Press (December 2010)
INQUIRY, COLLABORATION, AND REFLECTION IN THE STUDENT (TEXT)-CENTERED MULTIMODAL WRITING COURSE" (pp. 200-209)
From:Teaching With Student Texts
Scott L. Rogers
University Press of Colorado, Utah State University Press (December 2010)
"EMBRACING UNCERTAINTY:The Kairos of Teaching with Student Texts" (pp. 229-242)
From:Teaching With Student Texts
Rolf Norgaard
University Press of Colorado, Utah State University Press (December 2010)
"STUDENTS WRITE TO STUDENTS ABOUT WRITING" (pp. 88-95)
From:Teaching With Student Texts
Laurie McMillan
University Press of Colorado, Utah State University Press (December 2010)
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