The Research Paper

Whoa. I honestly can’t decide if I love or hate Burke’s expert project. I definitely like the idea of students having the whole year to become the expert on a topic; a unit never feels like enough time to accomplish all the research standards AND have students feel like they thoroughly explored their topic. But having that in the background for the majority of the year also feels rather daunting.

Personally, I don’t enjoy giving homework unless it’s reading or unless it’s work that wasn’t finished in class. If this paper is always running in the background, that requires students to work on it outside of class by design. My experience (though only a year’s worth) has shown me that only a minority of students will do homework. (That is not a judgement. Many are involved in sports and clubs that require their time after school.) If I was a student, I likely would choose to not do that background work and when it was time for a check-in, I would do it all the day before (which defeats the year-long concept).

I would be curious to know what Burke does to motive his students from the beginning of this assignment. How does he excite them? Overall, I just worry about the motivation and timing of this project. On the one hand, it sounds great to not have to rush a research unit, but on the other it seems like it would be hard to make this assignment convincing.

For my in class activity, I am going to create a handout that can help guide students to creating a research question since that is where many students struggled in my student teaching.

The Process Paper

I really appreciate how focused Burke is on making sure his students get to where he wants them to be. He seems to always have very specific goals in mind, and this shows in how he thinks through process papers. There is no confusion about what he expects, he gives a specific task, what the paper must contain, and what the student needs to do in order to get to that point. For me, however, it seems a little too structured. I understand that students need direction and don’t want vague assignments (I’m the same way, after all!), but I don’t see how Burke avoids totally controlling the students’ process. Isn’t part of learning trying that process and seeing what works for them as writers and what doesn’t?

I think this is where Burke differs from K&G–he is much more structured in the sense of how he guides students to their goals. K&G have specific goals, but there are different ways that students can get to their goals. This seems to tie closely with what I read about writing on demand and writing to learn. However, I really appreciate the way that Burke addresses revision, as that is something that I struggle to teach (and do as a student!) So, for the In My Classroom Task, I want to create something that concerns revision and how to approach revision.

To be clear, I think structure is a good thing and appropriate in many contexts. I’m wondering how to maybe take Burke’s ideas and allow a little more freedom into them. I’m excited to hear what the rest of you think about this…am I being a bit too laissez faire? One of my personal goals as a teacher is to not ask students to do something I wouldn’t want to do. Now, obviously that is within reason as many students won’t want to read and write, but in general thinking about the process paper that Burke describes sounds a bit forced and not entirely joyful.

In My Classroom Activity 2

For this activity, I tried to take on the approach of recognizing that students will have to participate in writing on demand. To ease the anxiety of that, I created a place for students to map their ideas for a paper. This, of course, would have to be preceded by mini-lessons on thesis statements and supporting evidence, but the idea behind this handout is to give students a place to organize their thoughts BEFORE they frantically start to write and end up nowhere. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a practical one.

Handout: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YzT1jPhZyFIAqdoBrstdq_cN9q-_lWgI_b80KqC0d80/edit?usp=sharing

Blog Post #5: Writing on Demand

I touched on these ideas in a bit in my last blog post, but I’m going to make this blog post a bit more specific to the given prompt. I think as teachers, most of what we ask students to do is write on demand. Whether that be journal prompts, in class essays, or class activities. We are always on a schedule and expect students to (hopefully) meet us there. Though Burke touches on this a bit, he is primarily concerned with assessment. However, I would argue that as teachers we are constantly prepping our students to be able to write at the drop of a hat.

The problem arises when students can’t write under those demands. I know that I personally get frustrated when students won’t write during journal time, but one of the problems could be that they are having trouble developing their thoughts during that time constraint. We know that the best way to become a better writer is to write a lot and write often, but as much as I would love to devote days to only writing, the simple fact is that there is often not time in the schedule to do so.

There is a disconnect between how we expect students to be able to write and the time we are given to help students meet that expectation. Assessments that are based solely on what a student can get on a page in a given time depend on a classroom that is focused that is training students for that skill. While I do think that is a useful skill to have, we have more pressing–and even more practical–things to do with our instructional time.

So where does this leave me? I’m not entirely sure. I understand where Burke is coming from, but I struggle to be enthusiastic about writing on demand for assessment. From a student perspective, what will they get out of it? Maybe writing on demand helped prepare me for college, but what about my students who are not pursuing college or simply won’t have to take classes that require papers? Do I want them to leave my class with that skill or as a reader and writer on their own terms? For my classroom activity, I am thinking about creating a handout for timed writing tips, as it is something that we will encounter regardless of my feelings about it, but I’m not entirely sure yet.

In My Classroom Activity 1

The Tragedy of Othello Pre-Reading Questions

How does jealousy affect the way that people act?

What are reasons someone might manipulate someone else?

Think about the saying “All’s fair in love and war.” What do you think that means? Is it true? Why or why not?

How is trust established? How is it destroyed?

People who are different tend to be treated differently. What modern examples can you think of to support that statement?

Based on the questions and your answers above, brainstorm two theme statements. Don’t worry about perfect accuracy, we will return back to these. 🙂