[Teaching_Composition] Teaching Comp--On line comp & Info Literacy

[Norgaard Rolf]

Academic discourse as a term and concept is itself complex and under some
scrutiny.  A good place to begin is with Pat Bizzell's book _Academic
Discourse and Critical Consciousness_ (1992).  Although not the most
recent publication, its treatment still hodls much that is relevant.

More generally, I find myself suspicious of arguments that we ought to
limit college writing instruction to academic discourse.  Effective
writers need to be savy in their assessment of rhetorical situation and
audience and well accomplished in their ability to move among several
kinds of discourse and to work in multiple genres.

Best, Rolf

Dr. Rolf Norgaard                   Environmental Design Bldg., Rm. 1B64
Program for Writing and Rhetoric    Campus Box 317
University of Colorado at Boulder   VOX: 303-492-3605  FAX: 303-492-7877
Boulder, CO 80309-0317              rolf.norgaard@colorado.edu

On Mon, 20 Nov 2006, Bernard Gallagher wrote:

> Colleagues,
>
>
>
> I apologize for this E-Mail (it is off the topic) but I would appreciate
> some help. I am interested in knowing what research shows about limiting
> the teaching of writing to academic discourse. The conventional argument
> is that academic discourse requires transferable critical thinking
> skills and that matters of style and form can be learned quickly. My
> intuition tells me that the conventional argument is wrong. I need to
> find out if my intuition is wrong, right, or partially right.
>
>
>
> Could you steer me toward some references that offer empirical evidence
> about the claims and counter-claims about the efficacy of various
> approaches to teaching composition?
>
>
>
> Bernard Gallagher
>
> LSUA (at Alexandria)
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: teaching_composition-admin@mailman.eppg.com
> [mailto:teaching_composition-admin@mailman.eppg.com] On Behalf Of Karen
> Schwalm
> Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 1:42 PM
> To: teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
> Subject: Re: [Teaching_Composition] Teaching Comp--On line comp & Info
> Literacy
>
>
>
> For a faculty evaluation portfolio activity back in 2003-04, I worked on
> developing a series of information literacy exercises tied to writing
> assignments in English 101 and 102.  The librarians here at Glendale
> Community College (AZ) helped me think about what I was doing
> systematically.  I read ALA's "Information Literacy Competency Standards
> for Higher Education"  and then created a table that helped me map my
> assignments to the standards.  I had to re-phrase the standards a bit,
> translating them into language I could understand more easily (and to
> squeeze them onto a single page).  See the document here:
> http://glory.gc.maricopa.edu/~kschwalm/FEP/ils%20Table.doc
> <http://glory.gc.maricopa.edu/~kschwalm/FEP/ils%20Table.doc>    The
> standards are on the left; my assignments are across the top.  Feel free
> to download, copy, modify and use the table.  If you make improvements,
> please send me a copy!  I know it's very mechanical and reductive, but
> the table helped me keep track of what I was trying to do, and the
> single page format made the task seem more manageable.  Looking at it
> now, I realize that I have actually made a lot of improvement in 3
> years.
>
>
>
> Because I was teaching online and on ground sections, I worked hard to
> develop exercises that could work in both environments.  You can see a
> list of the ones for English 101 here:
> http://glory.gc.maricopa.edu/~kschwalm/English101/infolitexercises.htm
> <http://glory.gc.maricopa.edu/~kschwalm/English101/infolitexercises.htm>
> (Ignore the first two; they are very site specific.)  Some links may
> lead to password-protected files, and some may be broken; we've changed
> servers since then, and I moved a number of files.  I have additional
> activities that I developed for English 102 which addresses research
> more directly.  For all of them, I try to collect some find of feedback
> from students, and usually I post those on a web page for students to
> read.  Some feedback is here:
> http://glory.gc.maricopa.edu/~kschwalm/FEP/activities.htm
> <http://glory.gc.maricopa.edu/~kschwalm/FEP/activities.htm>
>
> I changed research topics last Spring (to electronic surveillance), so I
> heve revised exercises to address that topic.
>
>
>
> Having now read the entries by Rolf and Russ, I realized that I have
> missed a lot of opportunities to talk about the rhetoric of citation.
> I'm getting into that a bit this semester, so I need to go back and
> revise some of these activities (or develop some new ones) to up the
> ante a bit.
>
>
>
> A couple of themes have developed from this work.  The first was to get
> students to recognize when they didn't know something.  Sounds simple,
> but it really isn't.  Librarians call this recognizing an information
> need; I think about it as thinking about thinking (meta-cognition).
> Then it's just one step towards teaching them how to find out what they
> don't know.
>
>
>
> The second theme has evolved over the past few years as students come in
> with what they consider to be excellent Google skills.  I have been
> talking about it as "efficiency."  Students don't like to waste time, so
> if we can teach them how to cut to the chase and find exactly what they
> need, they might use something other than Google.  I mean, narrowing
> your search results from 1.2 million to 500,000 hits isn't really that
> much of an improvement, especially when by using a library database,
> you'll find four excellent sources!  They especially like the
> efficiencies of using ebrary; see their comments here:
> http://web.gccaz.edu/~kschwalm/English101/ebraryComments.htm
> <http://web.gccaz.edu/~kschwalm/English101/ebraryComments.htm>   and
> many of them have gone back to use Statistical Abstracts for other
> courses.  I have also started to do a lot more with using searches to
> help students brainstorm or generate ideas.  Finally, I haven't done
> anything yet with Web 2.0 tools.  That's next!
>
>
>
> My exercises are tied very closely to my assignments, so they aren't
> readily transportable, but colleagues have used them or adapted the
> ideas to their own situations.  Feel free.   I have also tried to
> incorporate written responses--short paragraphs--so there is some
> evaluation required.  But students submit their responses using web
> forms, I get a copy in email, and I can evaluate them pretty quickly
> using a simple scale.
>
>
>
> Information literacy is one of our college's secondary competencies, and
> while we offer specific courses, I believe that all faculty should be
> integrating information literacy instruction into their courses.  It's
> just like WAC; it's everyone's job.  The problem is that fauclty need to
> learn this stuff too, and I think the greatest benefit of this project
> has been how much I've learned.
>
>
>
> By the way, I agree with Donna.  Student questions (except for the most
> personal) go to a Help and Feedback area of my discussion group or to a
> specific topic about the assignment.  I am very speedy and generous with
> my help there, a little slower and not quite so forthcoming in email.
> They get the idea very quickly in the semester.  Students can often
> answer the questions there too!
>
>
>
> Karen
> -----
>
>
>
> Karen Schwalm
> Faculty, Department of English
> Glendale Community College
>
>
>
>