The General View of a Classroom
Pages 1 through 1 1/2:Document File Name:
_JosephEng_
TeachersStudentsWriters
By now you should have read
Joseph Eng's article “
Teachers as Writers and Students as Writers:
Writing, Publishing, and Monday
-
Morning Agendas” (this article is available online at
http://www(dot)writinginstructor(dot)com/essays/eng.html
.This reading will orient you to some of our challenges as writers
this semester.
Over
view
of this Discussion Activity
I want you to use this article to both learn something about how, as students and teachers, we
are engaging in a course that is aimed to publish our writing, and to reflect on some of the social
and cultural issues with wh
ich we will be concerned. In particular, pay attention to Eng's
discussion of the classroom as a contact zone. He writes:
In the past several years, the sites of college composition have been characterized as
"Contact Zones" where people of unequal power
may interact under conditions that
allow for sharing and understanding (Mary Louise Pratt) or as "borderlands"/la frontera,
as places of cultural, geographical, and linguistic differences where shifting and multiple
identities exist in face of discomfort
and conflict (Gloria Anzaldua). Composing therefore
connotes sharing, understanding, negotiating, and indeed debating among ideas and
voices represented in a diverse student body in terms of race, gender, and cultural
backgrounds.
Eng spends considerable t
ime reflecting on what he and his students wrote, and he discusses
this within the context of power, difference, and identity.
Instructions for this Discussion Activity
In this discussion posting, I would like for you to post your
reactions to Eng's arti
cle and reflect
on what you understand through his work about yourself as
a
writer and how to engage in this
course with the rest of your peers (and me!) as writers.
. In order to get your full point v
alue, you
need to demonstrate:
1.Comprehension of the main points in the reading
Reference at least two
main points of the article. Be concrete in your reference
–
use a quote or paraphrase to
demonstrate your understanding of Eng's points
2.
Application of the points to yourself and the course (5 points)
--
Discuss how the points
you reference tell you something about yourself as a writer and our course context
Pages:2 1/2 through 3:
Discussion Activity
_
Wilma Clark
“
Writing for Publication in an Advanced Course for
Undergraduates
By now you should have read
Wilma Clark's article
“
Writing for Publication in an Advanced
Course for Undergraduates
” (this article is in attachments). This reading will orient you to some of our
challenges as writers this semest
er.
I want you to use this article
to anticipate some of the challenges that students have revising
their work and thinking of writing as a process. We will be approaching writing this semester as
a matter of deep re
vision, not in terms of superficial grammar instruction. Use Clark's
experience with her students as a way of imagining your primary tasks as writers.
Instructions for this Activity
In this discussion posting, I would like for you to post y
our
reactions to
Clark's
article and reflect
on what you understand from this about the work ahead of you for this semester.
This is a graded discussion activity worth 10 points. In order to get your full point value, you
need to demonstrate:
1.
Compreh
ension of the main points in the reading
--
Reference at least two
main points of the article. Be concrete in your reference
–
use a quote or paraphrase to
demonstrate your understanding of Eng's points
2.
Application of the points to yourself an
d the course
--
Discuss how the points
you reference tell you something about yourself as a writer and our course context.
Writing
Name:
Institution:
Course:
Date:
Writing
The class room is a complex part of the society, relative to the fact that it one of the units that is representative of the community. Ideally, everyone in the classroom is different. This is t mean that every other person in a single classroom, from the teacher to the students is different from a number of aspects. They all come from varying cultural backgrounds, religious beliefs, gender, race and even the level of aspirations are different. As such, when one comes to the classroom, they are bound to interact with different people especially with regard to the fact that, all of the members of the class have to tune their differences to match the class objectives.
There are quite a number of conflicts, when it comes the aspects of sharing ideas, debating them, negotiating through different aspects of the class courses and eventually creating a level field where everyone can thus understand the specific content and context of the information that is shared. With reference to the same, the classroom can be looked at from the perspective of a contact zone. This means that the classroom acts as point where the different members of the class interact on the basis of academics, teacher, student, young adults, adults and even a child. This are quite a number of interactions, all of which are also reflected on the accounts of their complexity. The level of complexity can be further amplified through the establishment of the various differences that have been aforementioned such as race and culture.
The general view of a classroom is a lace that the students and the teachers must mold themselves according to the objectives of the class that they are attending. This means that they have to be changed to conform to the class. Ideally, there is another perspective, when the class is viewed as a contact point. The academics should also mold according to the class that is session. In this case the class that is in session is an incorporation of all the aspects of the students and teachers differences and how all of their unique attributes interact. As such, the different parties to a class are always...