Yon's questions for July26

Q 1. According to Reiff, the genre can be interpreted in the context of a power dynamic. Used to a genre convention, however, readers often cannot see how excluding a genre can be. In what ways can composition teachers help students to critically read a genre convention?

Q 2. When we adopt Yancey's portfolio evaluation into a writing class, how can we relieve students' anxiety about their grade all along the semester? 

K.K. questions for 7/26

1. From the Wysocki piece-
Have you ever had to analyze the visual aspects of a written page the way Wysocki does by examining different fonts and sizes? Also, do you see a value in teaching about the visual parts of something textual as another way to understand the social circumstances that surround what makes a text look the way it does?

2. In the "Portfolio Program in Press" section of the Yancey piece, a series of questions is asked about portfolios, and Yancey suggests that as the portfolio pedagogy progresses, those questions should continually be asked to ensure portfolios are helping students write.

"Do portfolios as currently conceptualized and defined foster development in writing? Do they help students become (better) writers? What attitudes toward writing do they engender? Are the portfolio contents appropriate, given the aims of the curriculum? Are students given enough authority in selecting the contents of the final portfolio? Are they given enough help in doing so? Are students prepared to assume responsibility for their own writing?"

So, do you share this view of portfolios in the classroom as an ever-changing tool that is always going to be shifting and evolving? Or is there a certain standard or version of portfolio that you imagine you will default to as a teacher?

Aderibigbe, questions 7/26/2018

1. In one sentence, how will you assess Reiff's view on genre? 

2. As a writing teacher, how much importance do you place on visual arrangements?

Annaliisa's Questions

1) Did Yancey's essay help you decide whether or not to use portfolios in your classes? Why or why not?

2) Reiff writes that her essay is directed at new instructors. Did you find her discussion of genre added anything new to what we have already learned and if so, then what?

Pat's Questions July 26

1.     Reiff mentions that “the idea is that as students critique genres as sites of rhetorical action and cultural production and reproduction, they also see how genres function as motivated social actions, enabling them to enter into the production of alternatives” (163). Using this as a springboard, and since all of us will eventually teach ENC 2135, how might you have students engage in and produce alternatives?  

2.     Yancey, on page 112, mentions the different ways which composition teachers might use in order to evaluate student portfolios, from grading the portfolio holistically, to averaging the grades of the individual pieces or even including assessment from a group of teachers. If you have had any previous experience with portfolio grading, which assessment method did you (or a previous instructor you may have had) use and why? Or in light of our discussion on Tuesday about assessment, is there a specific assessment method that Yancey mentions or otherwise that you might consider using in your own classroom? 

Keri Miller 7/26

1. Reif calls attention to “how our own work as teachers is also situated institutionally and organized and generated by genres ranging from textbooks to syllabi to assignments to the end comments we write on papers.” What institutional genres do you feel you could analyze more thoroughly in order to help yourself become a better composition teacher?

2. What are some examples of times you’ve used genre as a lens to better understand a rhetorical situation? Either as a student, a teacher, or in your day-to-day life?

Noah's Q's 7/26

1. What was your writing instruction like? Was it as genre oriented as some of the readings/suggestions we've seen for writing instruction?

2. For the non-rhet/compers in bootcamp: looking at the portfolio assignments, the readings for tomorrow, and the digital strands, how was your view of composition changed? Was multimodality a part of your writing instruction? Did you see this type of composition as a part of the discipline? Do you find it useful? Will you use it?

Laura Smith Questions July 26

1) Yancey offers a lot of compelling arguments for portfolio grading. What are the pros and cons? Especially for people who are planning on not using it, what are you planning to do instead? Why?

2) Wysocki offers several in-depth analyses of visual spaces in her article, which engage with everything from typeface to color to layout. How is critically analyzing visual elements similar and different to analyzing alphabetic text? Is it more or less culturally situated? Is it more or less individual?

Reiff questions - Liz :)

1. Reiff stresses an importance for instructors to move beyond simply teaching genre as form. For one, if we teach genre as simply a template to fill, then students will be less likely to take risks like they are encouraged to in project three. How do you think you can get your students to this point of taking risks in writing and genres?

2. How do you feel about Reiff's "anti genres" (page 162)? How do you see using this type of response in class?

Farrah Hersh Q's 7/26

In the Reiff piece, creativity and the strength and interest of the student was a common theme at least to me. In your classroom, will you allow a student to be more creative throughout the semester rather than perhaps on the last project? I'm thinking how we were able to design our literacy narrative any way we wanted.

When talking about portfolio assessments, Yancey states that a possibility would be a group of teachers rating together. Somehow this doesn't seem right to me. As a teacher you've watched a student grow in the classroom, how would other teachers know the effort was put into every assignment and project if they weren't there for the entire semester? I will admit it is different if it's just one paper, but an entire semester's worth is something else entirely.

Pickens 7/26

1 – In Portfolios in the Writing Classroom: A Final Reflection Kathleen Yancey says that “teachers will read not so much to see how their students are developing or to suggest new directions, but to assess, to assign value (Purves 1984). In this situation, teachers' reading of and response to text are directed in large part, first, toward providing such an evaluation and, second, toward providing a justification of the reading and of the assigned grade” (111). Do you agree with her assessment of the effect that responding for evaluative purposes can have on a teacher’s responsive priorities? If possible, draw on your own experiences. If you think she is correct, do you think there are ways other than portfolio grading that can prevent this?

2 – In her pedagogical insight essay, Mary Joe Reif says that “Approaching writing through a contextual genre theory consists of using genre as a lens for accessing, understanding, and

writing in various situations and contexts. A genre approach to teaching writing is careful not to treat genres as static forms or systems of classification. Rather, students learn how to recognize

genres as rhetorical responses to and reflections of the situations in which they are used” (159). What are some of the approaches that you might take as a teacher to avoid teaching genre as a static form? If possible, provide an example of a less that you might employ.