Pass this sentence around the circle
Of the readings for this week, I think I found Stancliff’s “Exploring Topics: Rationale for a Class Exercise,” to be the most useful. Although I’m not sure when I would use the activity, I found the idea of having all students give their perspectives on a topic to be a good way to encourage students to take other points of view into consideration.
For this post, however, I want to briefly reflect on one sentence from another article that has stuck in my mind since reading it. In Susan Allspaw’s “Writing Exercise—Connections,” she describes an activity where she asks students to look at pictures from different perspectives. In the end, she writes, “In the past, my students have reacted positively to this exercise because when they’re writing they’re not aware of its intended purpose until the end” (256). I both agree with and am troubled by this sentence.
I agree with the statement because Allspaw seems to be suggesting that the students are free to be more productive and creative with their writing precisely because they don’t recognize it for what it is; they don’t realize that they are actually beginning a writing assignment they will eventually turn in for a grade. I can’t remember if I’ve already blogged about my experience with this approach, but in one of my undergrad comp courses, the teacher told us to write a paper that we would never turn in. I think we all knew that we really were going to eventually turn it in, but I was able to convince myself that I wasn’t, and I found the experience to be oddly feeing, and the paper turned out better than I would have expected. So, I guess my point is that sometimes it can be most beneficial for students to not have them see the big picture; if they are involved in the task at hand without having to worry about where their work must later lead, they might feel more free to experiment. They will use the information to shape the assignment rather than using the assignment to shape their information.
The hesitation I have about this approach, however, is precisely the fact that one seems to be withholding information from the students. In my experience as a student, I know that students want to be told up front and honestly; feeling that the teacher is hiding information only leads to frustration because students (often rightly) assume that what they don’t know will hurt them (or at least their grades). There is also the fact that we are not just teaching students this activity so they can succeed on one paper, but rather we are building students’ understanding of the writing process so they can have resources from which to draw at later points in their lives.
I guess what I’m trying to find is the fine line between freeing students from the worry about the big picture of what they are supposed to be learning while also allowing students to be aware that what they are learning does have broader applications and implications. Perhaps just a simple discussion of or reflection on the invention process would be helpful in making the students more aware of how invention activities work. Allspaw does say that her students, at the end, are aware of the process. And maybe using the same activity at different points in the semester would also help students see how the activity has taught them a transferable skill.
I know this didn’t do much to cover the readings in general, but I found that one sentence to be loaded and provocative, and I’m sure others have even more perspectives on it.
For this post, however, I want to briefly reflect on one sentence from another article that has stuck in my mind since reading it. In Susan Allspaw’s “Writing Exercise—Connections,” she describes an activity where she asks students to look at pictures from different perspectives. In the end, she writes, “In the past, my students have reacted positively to this exercise because when they’re writing they’re not aware of its intended purpose until the end” (256). I both agree with and am troubled by this sentence.
I agree with the statement because Allspaw seems to be suggesting that the students are free to be more productive and creative with their writing precisely because they don’t recognize it for what it is; they don’t realize that they are actually beginning a writing assignment they will eventually turn in for a grade. I can’t remember if I’ve already blogged about my experience with this approach, but in one of my undergrad comp courses, the teacher told us to write a paper that we would never turn in. I think we all knew that we really were going to eventually turn it in, but I was able to convince myself that I wasn’t, and I found the experience to be oddly feeing, and the paper turned out better than I would have expected. So, I guess my point is that sometimes it can be most beneficial for students to not have them see the big picture; if they are involved in the task at hand without having to worry about where their work must later lead, they might feel more free to experiment. They will use the information to shape the assignment rather than using the assignment to shape their information.
The hesitation I have about this approach, however, is precisely the fact that one seems to be withholding information from the students. In my experience as a student, I know that students want to be told up front and honestly; feeling that the teacher is hiding information only leads to frustration because students (often rightly) assume that what they don’t know will hurt them (or at least their grades). There is also the fact that we are not just teaching students this activity so they can succeed on one paper, but rather we are building students’ understanding of the writing process so they can have resources from which to draw at later points in their lives.
I guess what I’m trying to find is the fine line between freeing students from the worry about the big picture of what they are supposed to be learning while also allowing students to be aware that what they are learning does have broader applications and implications. Perhaps just a simple discussion of or reflection on the invention process would be helpful in making the students more aware of how invention activities work. Allspaw does say that her students, at the end, are aware of the process. And maybe using the same activity at different points in the semester would also help students see how the activity has taught them a transferable skill.
I know this didn’t do much to cover the readings in general, but I found that one sentence to be loaded and provocative, and I’m sure others have even more perspectives on it.
posted by jhertlein | 4:58 PM
2 Comments:
I agree, Jennifer! When I read that, I felt like Allspaw felt she had to "trick" the students into writing. Like "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down!" Should we be looking at writing as so "difficult" that the only way to get anybody to do it is if they're not looking at it for what it is? It's as though we we would give the students an "activity" and then afterwards be like "Ha! Gotcha!" I think Allspaw's view puts the teacher in the position of conning the students into doing something that she assumes that they don't/shouldn't/won't like, which seems overly pessimistic and inappropriate for the college level.
While I think it is well and good that we question how much information an instructor should share with her students, I don't think we should hold this one sentence above the rest in the article and then discount the merit of her invention activity.
Allspaw has students consider perfectly valid questions when examining a photograph.
I think when we read these articles we're supposed to keep in mind that we will position similar invention activities as we see fit. I don't think each and every article we read needs to include a paragraph on positioning because we're all going to put some thought into how we want to best position things in our own classrooms. It's an individual decision and an author can't possibly speak to it with any depth when the main point of the article is something else entirely.
Now if we were reading articles on how to position invention activities and how much information to share, then as I stated above, I think you have raised a perfectly valid issue that bears discussion.
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