Conversations on a continuum.
I found myself wanting to develop a writer's checklist for myself and for my students after reading Bazerman's article, “A Relationship Between Reading and Writing: The Conversational Model.” I find the information that Bazerman presents very compelling because I have a cousin who laments her high school students not knowing how to read. Also, as a blogger, I find that Bazerman’s “conversational model” makes a great deal of sense in that medium as well.
First, Bazerman doesn't assume that students know how to critically read a text. Sure, students will know how to read by the time they get to college, but he's saying they may not necessarily know how to critically read a text by annotating, questioning, reacting, and analyzing what an author says.
Second, Bazerman’s concept may need some unpacking for an audience of college students, for it would be easy for college students to automatically assume that they know how to read and yet fall short in understanding and, most importantly, evidencing this critical reading ability on their own.
To unpack Bazerman for students, I would explain the conversational model as:
1. Read first for understanding. (Ask yourself: what can I learn from this person? Annotate content.)
2. Read second for reaction. (Ask: What does this mean? Annotate response.)
3. Write a reaction statement and reconcile #1, #2, with what you know on the subject.
4. Write an evaluation where you use #3 in combination with additional research you do to "compare the claims and evidence of a number of different sources" and identify places for comparison and/or points of contention.
5. Identify an issue in #4 that you would like to develop further and write a description of the problem.
6. Consider what information your audience may have read and determine if additional explanation or analysis needs to be done.
7. Begin with #1 again with new sources.
From reading this article, I learned that we can teach students to enter academic conversations by teaching them to read critically, paraphrase, summarize, and analyze rhetorically. Two additional points of clarification I'd like to add are the need to teach students to think critically and quote judiciously. I believe thinking critically underlies Bazerman's 'conversational model,' and learning to quote judiciously is part of the process we will have to discuss and teach our students.
One of the ways we can very teach students how to quote properly is to teach them to integrate their quotes into their own writing and not let them get away with simply sandwiching a quotation between two sentences, especially like I did it in this sentence.
Note: What I did above by linking the action part of the sentence was a literate move as far as web writing, but for essays, I would be better off writing more formally. For example, Thanks...Zombie points out that one of the things he finds most frustrating about student writing is when students "simply plunk the quotation down between two sentences of [their] own composition" without integrating the quote within their own writing (link).
Oh! oh! -- stay with me here -- I've thought of a way to describe this on a practical and somewhat humorous level. Take a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You can't just spread peanut butter (your own sentences) on both pieces of bread (paper) and put some jelly (quote) on top so that the jelly is sandwiched between the bread and peanut butter. You must mix the peanut butter and jelly together (integrate the quote) before you spread it on the bread. Even so, you must make sure to drink enough milk so that the peanut butter doesn't stick to the roof of your mouth or your reader's mouth. That is, you must prove why this idea is significant and answer the 'so what?' question (why do I want to eat PB&J when I could have a BLT?)".
I've just noticed that in my unpacking of Bazerman, I have also, partly, unpacked the "vessel model" that the English department has decided to adopt next semester. #3 above fits the write a paper that engages with one text criteria. #4 fits with the write a paper that engages with at least 2 texts criteria. And, #5, #6, and #7 could easily describe the third vessel in which students write a paper that engages with 3 or more texts. What this tells me is that I (and my students) may be better served if I design my syllabus so that one formal paper assignment builds on the next instead of having them write 3 distinct and different types of papers.
First, Bazerman doesn't assume that students know how to critically read a text. Sure, students will know how to read by the time they get to college, but he's saying they may not necessarily know how to critically read a text by annotating, questioning, reacting, and analyzing what an author says.
Second, Bazerman’s concept may need some unpacking for an audience of college students, for it would be easy for college students to automatically assume that they know how to read and yet fall short in understanding and, most importantly, evidencing this critical reading ability on their own.
To unpack Bazerman for students, I would explain the conversational model as:
1. Read first for understanding. (Ask yourself: what can I learn from this person? Annotate content.)
2. Read second for reaction. (Ask: What does this mean? Annotate response.)
3. Write a reaction statement and reconcile #1, #2, with what you know on the subject.
4. Write an evaluation where you use #3 in combination with additional research you do to "compare the claims and evidence of a number of different sources" and identify places for comparison and/or points of contention.
5. Identify an issue in #4 that you would like to develop further and write a description of the problem.
6. Consider what information your audience may have read and determine if additional explanation or analysis needs to be done.
7. Begin with #1 again with new sources.
From reading this article, I learned that we can teach students to enter academic conversations by teaching them to read critically, paraphrase, summarize, and analyze rhetorically. Two additional points of clarification I'd like to add are the need to teach students to think critically and quote judiciously. I believe thinking critically underlies Bazerman's 'conversational model,' and learning to quote judiciously is part of the process we will have to discuss and teach our students.
One of the ways we can very teach students how to quote properly is to teach them to integrate their quotes into their own writing and not let them get away with simply sandwiching a quotation between two sentences, especially like I did it in this sentence.
Note: What I did above by linking the action part of the sentence was a literate move as far as web writing, but for essays, I would be better off writing more formally. For example, Thanks...Zombie points out that one of the things he finds most frustrating about student writing is when students "simply plunk the quotation down between two sentences of [their] own composition" without integrating the quote within their own writing (link).
Oh! oh! -- stay with me here -- I've thought of a way to describe this on a practical and somewhat humorous level. Take a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You can't just spread peanut butter (your own sentences) on both pieces of bread (paper) and put some jelly (quote) on top so that the jelly is sandwiched between the bread and peanut butter. You must mix the peanut butter and jelly together (integrate the quote) before you spread it on the bread. Even so, you must make sure to drink enough milk so that the peanut butter doesn't stick to the roof of your mouth or your reader's mouth. That is, you must prove why this idea is significant and answer the 'so what?' question (why do I want to eat PB&J when I could have a BLT?)".
I've just noticed that in my unpacking of Bazerman, I have also, partly, unpacked the "vessel model" that the English department has decided to adopt next semester. #3 above fits the write a paper that engages with one text criteria. #4 fits with the write a paper that engages with at least 2 texts criteria. And, #5, #6, and #7 could easily describe the third vessel in which students write a paper that engages with 3 or more texts. What this tells me is that I (and my students) may be better served if I design my syllabus so that one formal paper assignment builds on the next instead of having them write 3 distinct and different types of papers.
posted by Marcia | 7:43 PM
2 Comments:
No assumptions can be made. More things have to be explained than you can imagine. Even the simplest thing. Please don't think I mean anyone is stupid; I don't mean that. I just mean that we come from such different backgrounds. Modeling your thinking, and modeling something as simple as reading is very necessary.
As I read Marcia's checklist it made me see similarities between reading and writing processes. Aren't some of the items on her list like invention strategies, only for reading? As Marcia points out, students know how to read (as in decoding and hopefully basic comprehension), but they likely don't all go in the direction to reach deeper analysis. That's where we as teachers can help. I don't think what Bazerman and Marcia list would take long periods of time. When I assign a text in the course I teach right now, I (almost) always provide some purpose and background to prepare the students to read--what's the author's purpose for writing, what is our purpose for reading, what is the context in light of the class. This only takes a few minutes.
It's interesting though, because I sometimes reiterate this after the reading, and that is when the students seem to connect the purpose of the assignment with the context of the course. I imagine when students actually read (assuming they do) they are thinking about getting the assignment done rather than what the purpose of it is....I'm taking a broad view of the reading we do.
A separate thought and question is about your last comment, Marcia. I like the idea of building the writing assignments on one another. How would this work? How would these connect? I think there is great potential in this and would like to see how it comes together in your syllabus.
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