Weeks 13 & 14
Monday 11/19: Today we discussed the Alexander piece. Unfortunately, I also hadn't had an opportunity to properly go over Project 4 with them, although they got the instructions a couple classes ago. I honestly had the hardest time finding when to squeeze this in--the schedule is so tight! I didn't do it during the Project 3 workshop because we had a full day that day, too. I guess next time I'll have to sacrifice that workshop so that the reading discussions don't suffer.
My concerns were all those brought up in 5890: looooong reading (though engaging), foreign topic, Monday class, Project 3 also due, Monday before break. I will say that this was one of my weakest discussions. Rather than get really into the trans theory stuff, I chose to focus on how we inscribe/ construct gender through language. I had them take the Kate Bornstein Gender Aptitude Test as homework. My reasons were twofold: I wanted to introduce them to the concept that gender was fluid--that their binary way of thinking about gender were just the tip of the gender theory iceberg. I also wanted to see if there were any students who were familiar with queering gender or thinking of it differently. The results proved to me that this was a foreign concept to EVERY student in my class: NONE of them scored lower than 50. But at least not all of them were in a perfect binary bubble.
http://www.umass.edu/stonewall/uploads/listWidget/8927/Kate%20quiz.pdf
So, as I suspected, I didn't get much conversation out of this activity. Next time, I want to spend more time on it, if only to explain why I even bothered having them do it. Hopefully they understood the connection from the brief explanation I gave them and didn't consider unnecessary busy work.
Then we started with a free write taken from Pat Califia from the reading. I think this led to a really interesting discussion. Right away, all four of my male students said "no", they wouldn't want to switch genders, even if they could switch back. Unfortunately, it was said that there are no "perks" to being a girl. I thought this was sad, but interesting. Some of my female students disagreed with this and did share some examples of how women are treated better (important for when my male students question feminism/sexism and what it has to do with them). For the record, not all of my female students said they would want to switch for a day, which baffled me. Well, I assumed that everyone was curious! This was a really great free write exercise with excellent results and I will be doing this next time.
The rest of the discussion was very abbreviated. I connected Alexander back to Flynn. Students felt that this article was too similar. I should explain that I didn't have them read the student narratives since I was going to do an in-class activity using those. Because of the Project 4 thing, however, we weren't able to do any activities. Looking over my lesson plan, we didn't get to a lot of questions that I wanted to. As a last minute decision, I decided to play the Harvard Sailing Team's "Girls Will Be Boys" and "Boys Will be Girls". This came out of my concern that students would be disengaged with this article and would respond better to once again talking about gender more generally. After watching both of these videos, which they really enjoyed, I tried my hardest to get a critical discussion going on, but to no avail. I asked them what stereotypes were presented in the video, what stereotypes were displayed on the body, etc. They really didn't want to get critical, making this whole thing pointless. They were VERY vocal about how "accurate" the videos were, which was the most disheartening thing I heard that class. No one would engage with me when I argued that not Everyone relate to this. They complained I was sucking the humor out of it. Tough titties, I want to talk about gender critically. Reasons for this: It was the last few minutes of class. Solution: only show one video so as not to eat up all the time, tell them beforehand to look for stereotypes/how gender plays out in the body, or, perhaps, cut it completely.
Monday 11/26: I was fretting over how to teach Cixous in the back of my mind the entire break. I think I had bad memories from reading it in my fem theory class and not understanding it at all. I was a junior, with an interest in the subject. These are freshmen, who are getting tired of this topic, no doubt. The first thing I did with this reading was give them a pdf version from my fem. theory book that was a bit shorter; it also happened to have passages underlined, which students said helped them pay attention better. They did dialectical notebooks for this one, and they picked out some pretty interesting stuff.
So, as I said, I didn't know how to approach this text, and there was added pressure of being observed today; I didn't want to completely blow it. I simply took the questions that I wanted to ask them (some of my own and some from the apparatus) and added a passage from the text for each group to do a close-reading of so that each group was really focusing on a particular theme in the reading (the Medusa metaphor, the masturbation metaphor, etc.). Some of the questions sort of overlapped per each group, which turned out to be a great connector (and it also drilled the points home). I was pretty happy with the way it turned out. I also played the cheesy Medusa video at the beginning because I was really uncomfortable talking about Greek Myth freely (and Freud, too, for that matter. Plus, I hate Freud). To my surprised, one student who rarely participates seemed to know a lot about Greek Myth. My students still surprise me!
Wednesday: Perhaps the weirdest class to teach, in that there were a number of things I wanted to focus on; there was no theme (or really structure). First, we went over Project 4 once again since the questions are flooding in. I made them a brand new "checklist" of sorts-- it's pretty much their instruction sheet reformatted (that instruction sheet is admittedly difficult to comprehend). They have a lot to do for this project! I felt that the instruction sheet was a bit scattered, so I broke it down into the 3 components the needed for the final: 1. reflective/analytical essay (then I talked about elements needed in that and strategies on approaching it) 2. Revised Project 1, 3, or both 4 3. Selected Portfolio (including the previous 2 items) and any additional stuff they think proves they haven't blown off the class. This brought up more questions. I really think they'll feel better after their drafts are turned in and they meet with me individually. Speaking of that, I showed them how to schedule conferences using schedule thing. Told them the stakes (2 classes cancelled, 2 minor violations if missed, mandatory, etc.) Some students still haven't signed up so they may need to be reminded once again that it isn't optional. Then we talked about revision. I introduced global and local. One student has already revised her Project 1 once, and I asked her to share some of the things she did (address counterargument, add more sources, work on her synthesis, develop her own argument). By this class, I had graded some Project 3s and was quite disappointed that they were severely lacking in synthesis and using the Gee and Wardle readings as a framework. Because some students didn't include some of the required elements of project 3, I required them to revise this one for the final portfolio (meaning they have to revise it twice, they can't double dip). An addendum: their P 3s got worlds better after I graded more; I must have just started with the worst. Anyway, for the rest of class, I asked them to look at the "What I'm Looking For" sections of Project 1 & 3 (we were in the computer lab) and decide what they think they need to revise based on those requirements. The fact that they needed a synthesis was most surprising to them (what!!!???!!!!!???!!!) and this brought us back to the synthesis required for the reflective essay. Sloppily, we did a rundown of the authors we've read and their main points, starting with Swales, Gee, and Wardle; we only had about 7 minutes to do this, so we obviously didn't get far, but it made me realize they needed more help on synthesis.
Friday: Last reading! Once again, I felt like we didn't get to spend too much time on this reading. I made a decision to bring in Katie Wrabel's in-class activity to help them with their reflective essays. But we got through as much Anzaldua as we could in 20 minutes. I was going to begin with a free-write suggested by Renee, but I had technical difficulties; the project was working, but there was a blue screen that wouldn't go away. I felt like it was my first day all over. What a nice book end, I guess. I asked them a variation of the question and we had a decent discussion. For the first time (I think) I asked them their thoughts on the piece (which is hopefully open enough to not just call for "opinions") and they said, for the first time also, that they thought Anzaldua was on drugs. I was kind of taken aback by this comment. And then I was curious; we've read creative, nonstandard pieces before, why was this lady the druggie? I used that point to discuss the Lunsford interview where she talks about being included in rhet. comp books and how it was surprising (back-handed compliment). Some of my students took issue with the way white people were villianized in this piece (I saw a lot of "white people are always the scapegoat nowadays"), so we talked about appropriation and ethnocentrism. I asked them if they thought it was true that Western culture doesn't appreciate writing. They agreed it was true--I told them not everybody is unappreciative (how can they be hard on their own culture yet defensive about it when people call them out for those behaviors?) I asked them if they change with every piece of writing. One student said no, but another student actually disagreed with him. I was so proud and happy! I did forget to bring up Anzaldua's use of language, but I was rushed for time.
For. the rest of the time they did Wrabel's group activity, which I thought was a great idea. I spent the most time with the unit 1 group because I think those readings will be the most useful in the reflective essay (though not the only ones they should include). I think students are intimidated by the word "theory" (this was one question on Wrabel's handout). I think they believe theories belong in the science classroom, and "how can I have my own theory?" It'll be hard to get them to consider their own attitudes and opinions toward (andy systems used in) writing are "theories". I also think that their syntheses will be rather poor for this first draft. They can DO it-- have done it all year-- but they don't want to read. They hate reading, apparently. I told pretty much every student they needed to re-read Gee and Wardle because they didn't exactly understand those readings, and I doubt any of them will. They certainly won't re-read Berkenkotter & Murray just to make sure they got the "reconceiving" thing right. Man, they're really lazy when it comes to reading.
Speaking of reading, this is the longest journal entry ever. Sorry!
No comments:
Post a Comment