WRIT 1133 Spring Quarter 2017

Theory.Practice.Reflect.Repeat. #teachingfortransfer

[writ1133spring17]

Extra Office Hours: The Times

For Week 10 and for finals week, I’ll be holding extra office hours. During this time, you can bring revisions to talk through and/or questions about the digital portfolio. It’s open office hours so no appointment needed. Please just wait outside if someone else is in with me!

Week 10: 

Wednesday, May 31, 2017 2:00-4:00 

Thursday, June 1, 2017 11:30-2:00

Finals Week Monday, June 5, 2017 1:00-4:00

Wednesday, June 7, 2017 1:00-3:00 Thursday, June 8, 2017 12:30-1:30

[writ1133spring17]

Monday Music: David Guetta featuring Sia and Fetty Wap

A little dance music to get us going on Monday of Week 9! Plus, sometimes at this point in the quarter, it can feel like you are “bang(ing) your head against the wall!” :-)

Enjoy!

[writ1133spring17]

Digital Portfolio: The Sources

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Comp in New Genre

The Comp in New Genre is your attempt to work with your primary  research in a different way -- for a new genre and a new (popular) audience to show the ways in which research can be made appropriate for multiple audiences. This 3rd project (that’s part of your final Digital Portfolio) can many forms, and it should make sense given your research findings -- the focus is on your primary research’s findings. In many ways you are attempting to “transfer” your learning forward into a new project to show how you understand what it is your found through your research. 

Things to think about: what new genre makes sense given what I found? What type of audience would be appropriate for this new genre? What is my goal of the project? What’s my purpose? 

Pull out your research findings to see what makes the most sense. I have had students do everything from digital (or hand-drawn) posters to videos to movie scenes to brochures to raps and and crochet and games and more, so you are not limited to a fully written genre. You want to create a rhetorically effective (and rhetorically savvy) composition centered on your research findings. 

For draft that’s due on Monday/Tuesday of next week, you want to create a (mini) design plan that you can then implement for the final portfolio in other words you are not already creating this project you are creating a design plan where you think through your purpose, your genre, your audience, and so on so that you can get feedback on it before you start. 

In the draft, please think through your new rhetorical situation and purpose, your audience, your genre, and how you will implement it. Each section should include specific details from your research to help center your thinking. Please create a page, “Comp in New Genre.D1″ A design plan is specific and detailed and lays out what you will do in a clear concise way so that others can understand it. We will be doing a workshop on the design plan and the final draft of the Comp in New Genre is due with the portfolio. 

DUE by class time on either Monday, May 22, 2017 OR Tuesday, May 23, 2017 depending on which class you are in. 

[writ1133spring17]

Music Monday: The Civil Wars

Since we are moving into connections this week, I thought I’d share a great example of a duo with a powerful connection ... unfortunately, that powerful connection also led to the demise of their group. #complications But the music they made together was simply amazing. 

Week 8 ... all about those connections!

[writ1133spring17]

Conferences: Essay Draft #2

Week 8 concludes with a 20 minute conference with me to read over and review Draft #2 of your Essay. You must come with a full, working draft of your Essay (12-15 pages, all parts!). Please create a page (not a post!) on your Tumblrs and call it "Essay.D2" -- do NOT revise over the first draft. This should be a new page. If you miss your conference, you give up an absence.

Week 8: Conference Sign Up

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Friday, May 19, 2017 

Please try not to make changes once you sign up for a time slot -- I only have the right amount of spots. If you miss the conference, you give up an absence. 

[writ1133spring17]

Transfer of (Writing) Knowledge

After reading two pieces on transfer, you are going to apply your understanding of transfer to yourself as a writer and learner. According to Bergmann and Zepernick, students tend to *not* transfer learning/knowledge from a first-year writing course because they don't see the relevance outside of the classroom (i.e. they don’t see the relevance between what they learned about writing in the context of the first year writing classroom and other writing contexts).

No questions for this post instead let's try this ... to work on getting away from Q/A response.

Using both transfer pieces, draw 2-3 conclusions about the importance of transfer in college. Pull directly from the readings to help evidence this.

Next, project forward (i.e. past this class). Be specific. 

Next, continue to theorize about writing, writing practices, and your identity as a writer in this post. 

Since this is our last reading ... draw out connections between all the readings, in other words how do they overlap and/or work together as a whole. Then the last part of this Tumblr post, upload a music video that expresses how they -- the readings and your thinking on them -- have informed your understandings, your writing, and your learning.

DUE either Monday, May 15, 2017 OR Tuesday, May 16, 2017 by class time. 

We will be doing something with both transfer readings in class (Perkins and Salomon & Bergmann and Zepernick). 

[writ1133spring17]

Music Monday: Andra Day, “Rise Up” 

Given the stress and business of Week 7 forward, I thought this video might be inspirational and uplifting to listen to/watch. 

Some of the lyrics below: 

You're broken down and tired Of living life on a merry go round And you can't find the fighter But I see it in you so we gonna walk it out And move mountains We gonna walk it out And move mountains

And I'll rise up I'll rise like the day I'll rise up I'll rise unafraid I'll rise up And I'll do it a thousand times again And I'll rise up

Enjoy! Happy Week 7. 

[writ1133spring17]

Transfer of Learning

As Perkins and Salomon tell us, the transfer of learning happens "when learning in one context or with one set of materials impacts on performance in another context or with other related materials." The goal of this class is for you to learn knowledge/practices/learning that you will transfer forward, so with that thought in mind, please use the following questions to springboard your thinking on transfer using the article as evidence (some of you have not been doing this when it’s been directly asked ... ):

(1) how does transfer of learning happen? What are some obstacles preventing it from happening?

(2) can you think of a specific example (outside of writing and academia) where transfer occurs easily? Why does it?

(3) what are some practices and/or knowledge that you can see yourself  using in other writing contexts? Be specific.

Last, before you conclude your post continue to theorize about writing, where does "transfer" fit into your understanding about your own identity as a writer, your own understanding of writing more generally, and the ways in which you write everyday?

The goal of this post is to show how you understand transfer of learning, how it applies to you as a writer, and how it applies outside of writing in life more generally.

DUE on either Monday, May 8, 2017 OR Tuesday, May 9, 2017 depending on which class you are in. 

[writ1133spring17]

Monday’s Music: Week 6

In honor of the reading about reflection, I’m sharing (arguably) one of my favorite songs ever redone by Disturbed, “The Sound of Silence.” Some theorists argue that reflection is ... silence, the ability to be fully reflective in moments where you allow yourself to be silent within your mind and body. 

“People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening ... No one dare disturb the sound of silence.”  

Paul Simon is a lyrical genius. 

I dare you to listen and not get chills! 

[writ1133spring17]

Poster Page: DUE for Research Day

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Peer Review: Lit Review Draft 2

DUE as part of being in-class on either Monday, May 1, 2017 OR Tuesday, May 2, 2017. 

[writ1133spring17]

Threshold Concepts: Metacognition and Reflection

Reflection is an important part of writing -- many theorists may disagree on how to define reflection, but they all agree that reflection is a pivotal part of the writing process. Reflection, along with cognition and metacognition, are also part of what's referred to as threshold concepts or core concepts to a field of study that once understood transforms a way in which a student views the discipline. These threshold concepts help students have a better grasp of a discipline and allow them to continuously move forward in their understand of the concepts within it. They also help provide an enhanced language.

Similar to the first section on threshold concepts, you have two things to do for this section: 

Part 1: create a threshold concept similar to the ways in which you read in the two different sections (the one we read two weeks ago and this one) -- this literally means starting out the post with a threshold concepts like the readings do (e.g. “Reflection is critical in the development of writers”) and then theorize why it’s important to know/understand. Create a concept that you believe is important to know, understand, and master as part of learning how to be a more rhetorically savvy writer. To do so, you will have to be reflective, you will pull on prior knowledge about writing, and you will theorize about the field which is writing studies. Support your thinking with either one or both of the readings on threshold concepts (this means direct evidence!). 

Part 2: another attempt at a meme! Pick one key term that directly connects to your threshold concept, and create a meme that represents it. Similar to last time, it must be your own picture (not one pulled from the Internet). My example below uses the key term, “reflection,” to explain my TC (which you all read as part of the reading ;-). 

DUE by class time on either Monday, May 1, 2017 or Tuesday, May 2, 2017. 

[writ1133spring17]

Week 5 -- Music Monday

This week’s video brought to you by Rebel and a Basketcase. A blend of 80’s pop/rock and current alternative music sound. 

Who knows what movie the group’s name comes from?!?

[writ1133spring17]

Practice Run with Primary Research

(1) You must do ALL of the primary research together --- collective intelligence, remember? ;-)

(2) You must do 1 interview (shoot for 5 questions), 1 survey with 15-25 responses (3-6 questions), & 1 observation for 60 min (can be broken up into 20 min increments). 

(3) A check-in is due by Friday night @ midnight, which means you MUST have completed some part of your primary research. A check-in literally means “to check in” so please talk about what you’ve done and what’s left to do. Then reblog it on each group member’s blog.* *You *should* have used class time to meet ... that was 2 hours that you all had free to do this work. 

(4) ALL of the above is DUE by class time on Monday/Tuesday because we’ll be going over how to find findings within this research. 

See below for the original guidelines below. 

 There are lots of Tweets up about reminders/helpful hints for this work. 

Practice Run with Primary Research

For helpful hints on observations, how to incorporate/make use of evidence, and break-down of the different sections, please scroll down on the home page of the class Tumblr.

For the purpose of our “practice” run, you must do the following within your group:

                 (1)  Come up with 2-4 findings with direct evidence.

(2)  Create a visual representation of the findings (to show the connections and overlaps).

(3)  Write out a methods, results, and discussion section. You must also generalize a conclusion that includes implications for your research. This means you will need to do some quick and dirty research to find 1-2 secondary sources to help you write out your discussion section.

(4)  You will put up your writing on each group member’s Tumblrs. Remember that your audience is your classmates and myself, and your larger discourse community is the DU community. Please also be prepared to present on all of this in class on either Wednesday, April 26, OR Thursday, April 27, 2017 (depending on if you are in my M/W class or my T/R classes).

***Note: The purpose is for you to work together as a group, so that you can talk through the data and figure out how to read across it together. This means I’m looking for a cohesive piece of writing. I do not recommend that each person writes their own section. I do recommend working together, so that it reads as one fluid piece of writing.***

[writ1133spring17]

Lit Review: A Matrix

My TA, Annie, created a really awesome matrix to help you visualize connections across sources! 

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. -- Morpheus, The Matrix, 1999

[writ1133spring17]

Incorporating Evidence

 How to find evidence:

Look at your sources in different ways - for example, in your writing you might find that focusing on more readings or more ideas gives you more text to draw from, and therefore more opportunity to find evidence, or you might  find that delving deeply into one idea gives you enough.

Read carefully - just because the evidence doesn’t jump out at you doesn’t mea  it’s not there - read between the lines; interpret what you believe is     most important from the sources and write about how it is significant

Think outside the box - your evidence doesn’t have to corroborate your point exactly, it might address part of your point or it might only go so far     but you can theorize the rest of the way – it’s okay to speculate, as long as you can make the evidence work with your claim

Organize your evidence just as you organize your main ideas. Find the evidence that supports each main idea you want to write about and consult your draft or your outline for where it might fit to strengthen your point, or to illustrate a contradiction you see, or to help explain in detail why   something is as you say.

What to do with Evidence: 

1. One way to start incorporating evidence into your paper is by first summarizing what you have in terms of key evidence on a separate sheet of paper. Summarize each source to extract the key details (we are doing this in our Research Journals!) or mark certain passages that will support the ideas you already have from your outline or first draft. 

2. Once you decide what ideas you’re writing about, you might underline/highlight every area of the source that relates to the main ideas you are using.

3. Now that you’ve highlighted/underlined the evidence, go back and decide which of those parts will support your ideas in a way that is clear to your discourse community. 

4. Incorporate the evidence from the sources into your main ideas, using that evidence to “back up” every one of your claims. Each idea you have/claim you make should be supported by at least one piece of evidence. Where possible, use 2 or 3 pieces of evidence in support of a point. Try not to rely on only one source for the majority of your claims.

Warning: Don’t take evidence out of context!

This is very easy to do! What this means is that you can’t quote from the text and use that quote to argue something different from what the author was saying. This usually means you need to use a quote or you need to paraphrase a chunk of text that is long enough to provide its context, so its relevance to your point can be better established. Be careful to understand the context of a segment you quote or paraphrase, and use it in the same way the author intended it to mean.