[Teaching_Composition] RE: Teaching_Composition digest, Vol 1 #1288 - 1 msg
Kukowski, Linda K
teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
Mon, 29 Oct 2007 07:33:59 -0500
Singer on 661. Thanks for letting me know!
Linda Kukowski, Instructor of English
Minne Hall 207, Winona State University
Office Hours: M 9-10, 11-12
W&F 9-10 & 11-1
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Today's Topics:
1. Directed self-placement as a rhetorical act (Edmund Jones)
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To: teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
From: Edmund Jones <jonesedm@shu.edu>
Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2007 19:40:02 -0400
Subject: [Teaching_Composition] Directed self-placement as a rhetorical
act
Reply-To: teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
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Dan,
We have tried a related system of presenting graded college writing via
the online DSP system at Seton Hall University to give incoming freshmen
as sense of our expectations. I don't think all students take advantage
of this link, though I've had conversations with students who did seem
to
learn something useful from it. Something to be explored.
In more general response to your use of the word "rhetorical," as you
probably know, Lewiecki-Wilson, Sommers, and Tassoni place much emphasis
on placement as a rhetorical act (cited in the bibliography on the
website). This raises another question for me: To what extent can the
primary value of the act of placement be rhetorical, that is,
communicating a writing program's beliefs about writing and learning to
students? Is their some predictive value of the self-placement
questions.
Or is it neither possible nor desirable to discover if some placement
questions are more significant than others in predicting student success
in first-year writing classes? In other words, we ask students to
consider how many books they have read outside of school or how many
essays they wrote last year. Do the answers to these questions
correlate
significantly with student success? Do students who place themselves in
the college-level writing course and who get a grade of C or worse tend
to
respond differently to certain self-placement questions than do students
who succeed in the course? There has been no research that I'm aware of
that investigates such correlations.
Ed Jones
"Daniel Royer" <royerd@gvsu.edu>
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10/25/2007 08:12 PM
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teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
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Subject
Re: [Teaching_Composition] Online DSP as an instance of cross-cultural
communication
Yes, those are all good question, Ed. I like how you contextualize this
in
terms of communication. Of course that makes it rhetorical as well. But
the online issue does complicate it or make it more difficult. We were
recently doing some program assessment and we happened to be writing
some
one-paragraph descriptions of A, B, C, and D papers (judgments agreed
about by our local group). Anyway, along the way teachers felt strongly
that our short impressionistic descriptions would be very interesting to
students. I don't know if students would take the time to investigate
online, but with student papers and these teacher-response protocols
paired up, I can see how this would help students to better understand
the
local standards they were needing to adapt to. What do you think?
Dan Royer
GVSU
>>> On 10/25/2007 at 4:13 PM, in message
<OFCF772D66.42C390A5-ON8525737F.006C4BA0-8525737F.006F0137@shu.edu>,
Edmund Jones <jonesedm@shu.edu> wrote:
As writing program administrators consider directed self-placement or
online DSP, they might think about the extent to which we're trying to
engage in cross-cultural communication. In the old days, we eliminated
cross-cultural communication by simply administering a writing test and
scoring it according to our standards or looking at an SAT score. We
made
judgments about students' abilities according to what seemed like
universal standards or, at the least, local standards we knew that our
students would have to live up to. Whether the STUDENTS understood the
standards was irrelevant. That part of the education was something left
to the writing instructor.
With DSP, the general assumption has shifted some, so that students have
to compare their writing experiences and characteristics with
others'--with those of students who have fit well in ENGL 101 or with a
course for less prepared students. Thus they are asked to consider
their
SAT score, the number of essays the have written in high school, how
they
ranked in high school, how much they read outside of class. These
questions still seem relatively objective; that is, they seem to provide
a
reasonable basis of comparison. However, some schools are realizing
that
incoming students may need to educate themselves about the standards at
the college they have chosen. What is a B in one high school may be
different from a B in another high school, and different from a B in
college. The criteria against which a two-page paper is evaluated in
one
high school may be different from the criteria in another high school or
in college. Along still different lines, students may interpret
"College
English Intensive" or "Basic Writing" or "not for credit" in different
ways.
My question is, how far can we really go in educating our students about
the choices they will be making? To what extent does putting DSP online
further complicate the problems of communicating potentially different
values or beliefs about writing, standards, and education? To what
extent
can education be an ongoing process during the first semester or year so
that students can make increasingly educated choices about where they
belong?
Ed Jones
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Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"
<br><font size=2 face="Times New Roman">Dan, </font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="Times New Roman">We have tried a related system
of presenting graded college writing via the online DSP system at Seton
Hall University to give incoming freshmen as sense of our expectations.
I don't think all students take advantage of this link, though
I've
had conversations with students who did seem to learn something useful
from it. Something to be explored.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="Times New Roman">In more general response to your
use of the word "rhetorical," as you probably know,
Lewiecki-Wilson,
Sommers, and Tassoni place much emphasis on placement as a rhetorical
act
(cited in the bibliography on the website). This raises another
question
for me: To what extent can the primary value of the act of
placement
be rhetorical, that is, communicating a writing program's beliefs about
writing and learning to students? Is their some predictive value
of the self-placement questions. Or is it neither possible nor
desirable
to discover if some placement questions are more significant than others
in predicting student success in first-year writing classes? In
other
words, we ask students to consider how many books they have read outside
of school or how many essays they wrote last year. Do the answers
to these questions correlate significantly with student success?
Do
students who place themselves in the college-level writing course and
who
get a grade of C or worse tend to respond differently to certain
self-placement
questions than do students who succeed in the course? There has
been
no research that I'm aware of that investigates such
correlations.</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="Times New Roman">Ed Jones</font>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<table width=100%>
<tr valign=top>
<td width=40%><font size=1 face="sans-serif"><b>"Daniel Royer"
<royerd@gvsu.edu></b> </font>
<br><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Sent by:
teaching_composition-admin@mailman.eppg.com</font>
<p><font size=1 face="sans-serif">10/25/2007 08:12 PM</font>
<table border>
<tr valign=top>
<td bgcolor=white>
<div align=center><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Please respond to<br>
teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com</font></div></table>
<br>
<td width=59%>
<table width=100%>
<tr valign=top>
<td>
<div align=right><font size=1 face="sans-serif">To</font></div>
<td><font size=1
face="sans-serif"><teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com></font>
<tr valign=top>
<td>
<div align=right><font size=1 face="sans-serif">cc</font></div>
<td>
<tr valign=top>
<td>
<div align=right><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Subject</font></div>
<td><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Re: [Teaching_Composition] Online DSP
as an instance of cross-cultural
communication</font></table>
<br>
<table>
<tr valign=top>
<td>
<td></table>
<br></table>
<br>
<br><font size=3>Yes, those are all good question, Ed. I like how you
contextualize
this in terms of communication. Of course that makes it rhetorical as
well.
But the online issue does complicate it or make it more difficult. We
were
recently doing some program assessment and we happened to be writing
some
one-paragraph descriptions of A, B, C, and D papers (judgments agreed
about
by our local group). Anyway, along the way teachers felt strongly that
our short impressionistic descriptions would be very interesting to
students.
I don't know if students would take the time to investigate online, but
with student papers and these teacher-response protocols paired up, I
can
see how this would help students to better understand the local
standards
they were needing to adapt to. What do you think? </font>
<br><font size=3> </font>
<br><font size=3>Dan Royer</font>
<br><font size=3>GVSU</font>
<br>
<br><font size=3>>>> On 10/25/2007 at 4:13 PM, in message
<OFCF772D66.42C390A5-ON8525737F.006C4BA0-8525737F.006F0137@shu.edu>
;,
Edmund Jones <jonesedm@shu.edu> wrote:</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">As writing program administrators
consider
directed self-placement or online DSP, they might think about the extent
to which we're trying to engage in cross-cultural communication.
In
the old days, we eliminated cross-cultural communication by simply
administering
a writing test and scoring it according to our standards or looking at
an SAT score. We made judgments about students' abilities
according
to what seemed like universal standards or, at the least, local
standards
we knew that our students would have to live up to. Whether the
STUDENTS
understood the standards was irrelevant. That part of the
education
was something left to the writing instructor.</font><font size=3>
</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">With DSP, the general assumption has
shifted some, so that students have to compare their writing experiences
and characteristics with others'--with those of students who have fit
well
in ENGL 101 or with a course for less prepared students. Thus
they
are asked to consider their SAT score, the number of essays the have
written
in high school, how they ranked in high school, how much they read
outside
of class. These questions still seem relatively objective; that
is,
they seem to provide a reasonable basis of comparison. However,
some
schools are realizing that incoming students may need to educate
themselves
about the standards at the college they have chosen. What is a B
in one high school may be different from a B in another high school, and
different from a B in college. The criteria against which a
two-page
paper is evaluated in one high school may be different from the criteria
in another high school or in college. Along still different lines,
students may interpret "College English Intensive" or
"Basic
Writing" or "not for credit" in different ways.
</font><font size=3>
</font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">My question is, how far can we really
go in educating our students about the choices they will be making?
To
what extent does putting DSP online further complicate the problems of
communicating potentially different values or beliefs about writing,
standards,
and education? To what extent can education be an ongoing process
during the first semester or year so that students can make increasingly
educated choices about where they belong?</font><font size=3> </font>
<br>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Ed Jones</font><font size=3> </font>
<br>
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