Sample Writing Assignment

Assignment Overview Project 2: Literacy Narrative with Extended Cover Letter

Literacy Narrative

            → First, a little about the genre. A Narrative Essay tells a (non-fiction) story to make a point (thesis).  Narrative Essays are typically autobiographical, and draw heavily on the author's memory of significant past experience; the author looks back, re-views, and (re)interprets one's past from the vantage point of the present.  Often, the goal is to help us better understand who we are today (our identity), why we are who we are, and how we came to be who we are. We will be spending some time going over the narrative genre in order to introduce you to common rhetorical features of the genre so that you might imitate the style in your own writing.

            But this project asks you to write, specifically, a 750-1300 word literacy narrative that focuses on a significant past experiences in which reading, writing, speaking, listening, or some other form of literacy figures prominently. Literacy narratives focus on key stages or events in one’s development as a literate person. The literacy narrative, then, asks you to do what the narrative does but with a specific focus on literacy; you can discover and evaluate the role(s) literacy has played in your life, reveal the sources of your present attitudes and abilities, deepen your understanding of how/why you have developed into the kind of reader, writer, thinker, communicator that you have become. Some important moments, experiences, or stages of development in your literacy history might include influential events, scenes, people; stages; turning points or moments of insightful realization; failures and/or successes; passages into new, different kinds of language, reading, writing, communication, thinking. Alternatively, since there are many kinds of literacies, your narrative can also address other kinds of literacies, such as visual literacy, computer literacy, science literacy, film literacy, technological literacy, etc.

Essay #1 Requirements and Guidelines

·       An engaging, creative, and well-told 750-1300 word narrative that captures a focused story of a vital piece of your literacy acquisition and how it has influenced your identity.

·       The selection and use of descriptive detail and examples appropriate to your narrative's purpose and audience.

·       A thesis expressing a theory of meaning/significance regarding your described moment—a response to your imagined reader’s “So What” question. You must use your narrative to make a point/argument.

·       This means you must do more than simply narrate and describe your experience. Your narrative must also analyze, interpret, and explain the meaning and significance of the experience.

·       A focus on one single experience (story, event, moment, scene, encounter with an influential person, etc.) or two or three related experiences whose inter-connections you can show and explain, and, taken together, all contribute to your essay’s thesis.

·       Plenty of references and details that give your reader a sense of who you are as a person.

·       A project that is appropriate for an academic audience, and follows the conventions of grammar and punctuation.

·       An Extended Cover Letter that discusses the successes and struggles of the Project, along with a nuanced discussion of the rhetorical goals and impact. 

    Suggestions

·       Use rhetorical appeals (ethos, logos, pathos) to make your story more effective. Draw from our class discussions on texts from Malcolm X, Sherman Alexie, and Victor Villanueva to incorporate other effective narrative techniques (tone, style, organization, etc.).

·       Dramatize the event by including what people said, did, and thought. Consider using dialogue between the characters in your narrative.

·       Include sensory details that will help the reader to see, hear, smell, touch, and taste what happened.

·       Explain the life context that made this one event significant to you as a person who is from a particular race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, family, or religion.

Extended Cover Letter (these elements are in addition to the general Cover Letter requirements)

·       A list of 3-5 clearly defined Rhetorical Goals for your Project.

·       An explanation of how the course texts informed your Project and thinking about literacy.

·       A discussion that makes important connections between your literacy acquisition, concepts from Brandt, and Gee. Aim to put the sources in conversation with each other and with your experiences.

Comments on Student Papers

Student Evaluations

Instructor Evaluations

                                       

                                           
                                          

 Assignment/Class Evaluations

                                     
                                     

Teaching Journal Week XIII and XIV

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!

Teaching Journal XII

Week XII

Week 12 was a short week, but was filled with very interesting readings. I learned that while free writes might be routine now, they are a pretty valuable part of class. Even though my students might not have understood the articles (and might have skimmed, as I suspect), I was still able to get a good discussion on both days.

Wednesday: Instead of starting off with my usual free write exercise, I had my class take the Guardian UK quiz. Before we were able to do that, I had them give me some examples of traditionally feminine/masculine behavior. This went well, and they even included examples from the Flynn reading during this part. The quiz itself actually went better than I expected. I worried that it would take too long, but on some questions, students guessed right after the first sentence or two. We got 5 out of 10. The class agreed that the quiz didn't prove VS Naipul's point--that you can't tell the gender of the writer just by looking at the prose. I also pointed out Nicholas Sparks was one of the authors included and is an example of a male author composing what some might consider feminine writing.
      The downside of the quiz was that starting out with something fun like that meant it was harder to get back into the nitty gritty of discussing the major and minor points of the article. Discussion went best when I asked general questions about feminism, essentialism, social constructionism, etc. I learned that my students didn't really have any preconceptions about feminism like I expected. In fact, they seemed to not know what feminism was. Wow. My one (female) student who has been an outspoken opponent of feminism was absent today, and it really was a shame. I asked if they still feel if women's perspectives are silenced or ignored. Most students shared that they understood there was a point in the past where this happened, but they didn't feel it happened anymore. I asked the females in my class (14 of 18) if they ever felt silenced and they said no. I raised the point that sometimes when women get angry, it's dismissed by saying she's on her period. This is where the gender divide really worked in my favor because all the girls had been told that before. I ended discussion by asking what space Flynn's article leaves for discussing how men are affected by this stereotyping/sexism, but they weren't biting. Today was a pretty good class and I was pleased by how open my students seemed.

Friday: Even though my class was really respectful on Wednesday, I was still worried about our discussion of Delpit and Smitherman. I began by writing Audre Lorde's quote on the board. I thought maybe this quote presented in context with the readings would be too obvious and easy; I first encountered this quote in a WGS class, without context, and it was quite puzzling. But they were still pretty quiet. We ended up just discussing it as a class instead of doing a free write. But I still think it's a good connection to make and will use it again. Our Delpit discussion went alright, with the one uncomfortable moment being when they refused to tell me how Delpit disagreed with Gee. I thought this was obviously the take away from the reading, but what pissed me off was that they wouldn't look in their books. So as they were staring at me blankly, I said "I'll wait" to give them the hint. They know by now nothing pisses me off more than just having their books sitting closed on their desks. From the first day onwards next semester, I'm emphasizing close reading and textual evidence so this doesn't happen ever again. This actually had to happen a few times on Friday, with them not recalling certain points of the reading. They were much more forthcoming with Smitherman, so I chalk it up to them maybe skimming Delpit.
     Before getting into Smitherman, I showed them The Story of English: Black on White episode 6 so they could get a sense of code switching, BE, and why it's still a paramount discourse for them to retain. The video didn't really have the desired affect; some students were openly hostile toward BE--calling it "stupid" or saying they didn't understand why "they" had to talk like that in the first place. Another student responded that black people don't want to use the "master's" language because we've treated them terribly for so long, which I thought was a good point. We did a close reading of the ending before focusing on Smitherman's main point: to ignore superficial grammar features in favor of substance and ideas. I related it to what we do in 1510, and one student said she's really glad we do it that way. I definitely think this is the most relatable part of these two readings for these students. One student said he didn't know why we were doing these readings because he can't relate, so I tried to explain to him that it's important to have sensitivity toward multiple cultures. I tried to get him to admit how important language was for his own identity, so to extend that to people of color. The worst comment of the day came when one student jokingly said she wished there was a black person in our class "so we could ask them stuff." Ugh. Have any of these students ever even met a person of color? I honestly don't know. I tried to give a controlled and non preachy response to that saying imagine how uncomfortable that student would feel to be the token student of color. They all seemed to agree that that kind of thinking (let's just ask the black guy!) isn't a good approach.

Overall, I think both these classes involved some really good discussion. Students seemed to be talking more than ever. I definitely think the more general gender questions during Wednesday's class helped them open up a lot. I'm usually resistant to making it all about them because really, the whole point is that these readings AREN'T about them, but that's a defeating line of thinking.

Teaching Journal XI

Week 11

Monday: Today we read Heilker and Yergeau. Since there was no apparatus, I made them a reading guide. I was hoping this would make them feel more prepared to speak more.  I sort of began class with a disclaimer because I was a bit apprehensive about teaching this. It really helped that Sarah said this was about rhetoric and didn't need an autistic subject--it just happens to have one. I began with a free-wrire: What were your impressions of or (mis)understandings about autism prior to reading this article. How aware of autism were you? Where had you heard or seen a discussion about it before?
Surprisingly or not so surprisingly no one said they were familiar with autism, except for seeing the puzzle piece stickers (?) at Borders or Starbucks. One student mentioned that his roommate told him he had Asperger's, but unfortunately this quickly turned into students asking him what his roommate "did." I wanted to quickly move into the discussion of autism as a social construct, so I showed part of the video of Temple Grandin talking about Einstein and Van Gogh. I explained why it was problematic to diagnose people posthumously with a condition that didn't exist while they lived. I'm not sure they bought my explanation of it being a social construction, though. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure they know what a social construction is (If you'll read my previous blogs, we didn't get to Malinowitz). I had planned a group activity where half of them looked at What Paul Says and the other at What Melanie Says and describe characteristic 'autistic' behavior and explain how approaching that behavior rhetorically changes the meaning of that behavior. Then they were to get with someone who did the opposite person and talk about it. I'm not sure how well this would have worked, but I had to cut it short due to time. I might eliminate group work next time I teach this. I think the puzzle piece criticism by Yergeau resonated the most with them because they were familiar with that campaign. They tend to accept everything they're told (in class) without questioning it or challenging it, so having someone critique that campaign was interesting for them. This was a pretty good class. The students were respectful and I enjoyed reading their responses to the free-write. Even though they weren't familiar, they were still thoughtful (I don't know why some students don't like to share their responses!). They followed me on my discussion of discourse and rhetoric (the reading guide helped with these answers). Next time, I'd like to talk more about empathy and how it can be problematic.

Wednesday: Today's discussion of Villanueva was rather disappointing. Students did not really understand Villanueva's argument. This was the first reading response in which students asked questions in their responses. I tried to address these at the beginning, but I'm not sure they ever followed. I was also very surprised to learn that they had never heard the phrase "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps." Most of them didn't know what the assimilation myth was (even after looking it up), although one student at least admitted that he didn't really understand why it was a myth. Here's where I think I made my first mistake: I began with the Dozen Demons and white privilege. I think in order to understand these multicultural pieces (especially this and Delpit/Smitherman)--in order to understand why identity matters so much-- students have to recognize that their experience is probably different from what these authors are writing about. And they have to understand that this difference is largely due to racism and hegemony. As an undergrad, I read Peggy McIntosh's "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" and it was incredibly eyeopening. I showed a video of McIntosh briefly describing why she wrote the piece and then listing the privileges (we didn't watch the whole thing). I was of course expecting resistance to this, but not the type I got. First, I noticed some students (especially one who would comment on this) weren't really watching the screen, and were therefore missing the privileges. I think they also missed McIntosh's point that the black experience is largely ignored in the canon of literature and in the curriculum, which I thought was a good connection to Villanueva. I also think important to these readings is understanding how our schools continually fail our students of color.
     Anyway, after I stopped the video, one girl answered that she didn't see why things were unfair because "they get to go to school for free." I honestly thought this was pretty much a non sequitur, and wasn't sure how to respond. I assumed she was talking about affirmative action, which she didn't know by that name. I tried to explain why it would be fair for students of colors (and women!) to get a leg up (the dozen demons, the white privilege, the racism) but I wasn't prepared to give a lesson on why affirmative action exists. Maybe I should have been? Since this didn't work out, I probably shouldn't show it next time, but I still feel like its an important concept to grasp. Thoughts? I think that if students can't grasp the idea that people of color are at an unfair disadvantage and that many people of color have some sort of identity crisis because they exist in between two or more cultures, these readings will not resonate. The rest of Wednesday's class was spent discussing Villanueva's argument and the connection between memoria and personal, emotional writing rather than logocentric writing. We did a close reading of and unpacked two of the passages, which students did a pretty good job with.

Friday: Today was a workshop day. Usually I make their drafts due at 3 pm (after our class meets), but I'd been feeling like students weren't getting a whole lot out of in-class workshops. So instead of that, I had their drafts due by classtime today and they were to bring in a copy of their peer's paper. Some students brought in their own papers and swapped, which I was trying to avoid in case one student was absent. One girl never turned in her paper, so I had to have a student's paper be peer reviewed twice (which they were hesitant to volunteer for!). Before we did that, we did briefly workshop the Athens music scene sample. I have the students read the paragraphs out loud and then we discuss what we think works or doesn't work, and then I reveal my own comments. We focused on organization, the introduction (how personal and in-depth should you go?), Swales and the student's niche (and synthesizing the readings), how to incorporate interview questions/answers, and how to analyze answers. For the remainder of the class period, I gave them time to start their peer reviews. I projected a few guidelines/questions (mostly taken from the Project 3 instructions). I had planned on giving each student his/her class standing (number of violations) during this time, but because some students had questions, I didn't have a lot of time to get through them.

Teaching Journal X

Week 10

This week my goal was to retrieve my authority over my students. I think this would have went okay had the Wednesday Nightmare not happened, which I'll explain below.

Monday: Today we discussed Devitt et al. We began with a freewriting exercise in which they were to describe without looking in the book what genre is according to the layman. They were to also give examples from the Devitt et. al. piece to explain their definitions. This was, admittedly, a different and more difficult freewrite than the ones we most often attempt (most having to do with their feelings/previous experiences with a particular topic). However, I noticed that they were having trouble remembering even simple definitions (primary Discourse) and genre was an important part of this piece. It didn't go all that well. I had them get with a partner to share their answer. I then asked them to list all the examples of genres in this reading and in our own class. I really meant it when I said all because I wouldn't move on until I was satisfied. They were pretty unwilling during this part. I told them to get out their books and just read them (cheat!). At this point I was annoyed that a.) they didn't already have their books out. Most of the questions I ask that result in blank stares could easily be answered if they weren't so lazy and just looked at the article itself and b.) it appeared they didn't read the article at all. We finally moved on after I made the point to remind them to bring their texts to class on Wednesday because I'd be checking. It's unacceptable to me that they don't look at their texts while we're discussing a piece. The rest of the discussion was pretty lackluster. They didn't care to discuss the sample election ballot I pulled up because they all figured it was pretty easy to understand, despite Devitt's argument. We went over the jury instructions, which was probably the most successful part, as they seemed to grasp the issue of authority (specialized vs. nonspecialized) with that example. By the time we got to Reiff's section, the conversation was pretty much dead, and I noticed a couple students with their phones blatantly out on their desk. The Great Cellphone Shift happened during work on project 2, where students felt relaxed in the computer lab to do whatever they wanted (with the excuse that they were looking up pictures on their phones!). At the end, I reminded the class as a whole about our cell policy and that if I see them texting, they'll receive a minor violation. A couple students were visibly (and snottily) annoyed that I had said anything. The last  part of class involved us coming up with questions to ask our interviewees in our "mini ethnographies". It seemed like the class was unclear what to ask, so it basically turned into me suggesting questions that would get at some tension within their community.

By Tuesday evening, I had commented on all of their topic proposals and approved most of them. Some people's first choices weren't going to work, but luckily, these students had come up with backup plans, which I ended up approving. Overall, I'm much more happy and intrigued by these topics than project 1. I do have about 3 sororities/fraternities, but it's better than 8 papers on procrastination.

Around 2 am, I finished up my own work and went to gander at their Malinowitz IWAs. The first one I read was about "Isabel Serrano." My first instinct was: this student read the wrong piece. But the next five I read were also on the wrong article. I was so mad at my students' inability to follow directions! I sent out an email saying that they read the wrong article even though I had sent out an earlier email Monday saying its "Queer Texts, Queer Contexts,"(I even made some kind of comment in the email like "Bet you can tell what the article's about just based on the title") and that the reading apparatus also had the correct title, so there was no excuse for doing the wrong reading. I received an email from a student saying that I had written the wrong page number on the board in Monday's class and that's why they were confused. For the next hour I battled a flood of emotions: anger at my students, anger at myself, sadness, etc. First I was going to cancel class and give the students who had read the wrong reading minor violations (about 6 of my 18 students did the correct reading). Then I was going to teach Isabel Serrano; then I was just going to do a synthesis day. Ultimately, because I had made a mistake, I ended up canceling class and giving those who had read the correct reading extra credit (removes 1 minor violation). I don't know if this was the correct decision. Probably not, but I didn't want to have a class discussion if people weren't on the same page. I couldn't expect my students to read the long-ass Malinowitz article and read it well by 10:45 AM. I couldn't expect the students who had read the correct reading to also do "Isabel Serrano." I still can't think about what I've dubbed the Wednesday Nightmare without getting upset. It was the first time I've broken down all term. I hated canceling a class and I still feel like they didn't deserve my leniency. They encountered the correct title 3 different places (Note: I had also assigned extra credit for this reading, which I did as an incentive to get them to read Malinowitz closely and thoroughly). They have the reading schedule, they've never been shy about emailing me questions, and I always send out clarifying emails like the one on Monday in case I make stupid mistakes like writing the wrong page numbers, which I'm prone to doing. I had thought about saying "hey there's two articles, this is the one you need to read," but I thought I'd accomplished that by giving the article title. Obviously I will next time. This just tells me that, wrong page numbers or not, they don't read my emails, they don't read the apparati: they don't read anything they don't have to!

Friday: Today they had their introductions and conversations/syntheses due today. I sent out an email Wednesday saying they needed to post it to the discussion board. I also put up a sample introduction to show that it doesn't have to be perfect; that they could and should work through what their aim is in this intro. These were due by class time, but by Thursday evening, when I went to read some of them, only 6 students had posted them. Usually my students post their papers early Thursday afternoon (probably due do Thursday night shenanigans). I headed over to the class blog because I had written a post where I asked students who wanted their paper workshopped to respond. No one had requested their paper be workshopped, but many students had posted their intros to the class blog instead. Once again, coming off Wednesday's fiasco, I was pretty upset at the failure to follow directions (directions that were crystal clear this time). I was going to make a point in class on Friday to say This is what the email said to do, and this is what you didn't do: minor violations. Instead, on Friday around 9:30 I sent another email saying "Please post your intros in the correct location as per the email I sent out. Following directions is important." Some of them listened and corrected the mistake. Some didn't. I'm still giving those who didn't minor violations.
     In class I split them up into 5 groups (I came in early to rearrange the desks because I think the physical change is really beneficial) and handed each group a different intro. They each read through a copy of an intro then, as a group, composed a cover letter to their peer. Then we looked at the Primary Research Document. I also asked them to brainstorm some questions their peer should either ask their interviewer or themselves as he/she moves forward. They weren't really asking questions that would get at the tension/conflict within the discourse community (i.e. "How long have you been working here" instead of "how long did it take for you to feel comfortable here? To feel like part of the group.") So we spent some time going through some questions about authority and identity that they might ask. I think this helped clarify what they're supposed to do: find some argument and some sort of tension either within the dc or with what the authors are saying.

Overall this was a shitty week. I have no idea where my authority stands. On the one hand, I'm cracking down on following directions/class policies. On the other, I made an error in assigning homework. Because I was so bummed out about the Malinowitz, a discussion I was really excited for, I had thought about re-assigning it over the weekend in place of Heilker & Yergeau, which I didn't remember loving from orientation. Apart from everything else, the Malinowitz article gets at what I think is an important college lesson: giving a shit about people who're different than you. Ultimately, I'm sticking to the schedule and I really just want to move on from this week.