What is/are the most significant thing/s that you learned which you plan to use in some way in the future?

How to create a syllabus and andragogy are two of the most significant things I’ve learned about in this this course. Both of these will be of use to me in the future as I would like to teach at some point and hope to have a significant amount of adult learners.

In the near future, I anticipate being in a position where I am planning training sessions and instructing employees on best practices. For these sessions, I anticipate needing to design course materials that are designed with consideration being made for who my audience is, just as I would for a college course. As we’ve discussed in class, adult learners often have different expectations for a course and require a different sort of interaction than students in their late teens and early twenties. From my previous experiences training adults, most want a lesson to relate directly to their job functions and to be easily executable. Rather than providing abstract concepts, or delivering “good to know” bits of information, the big question is, “why is this important to me?”

In addition to learning about syllabi and andragogy, I learned about the importance of teaching students about how important their newly learned rhetorical analysis skills are to assessing real life situations. One situation that Dr. Rice mentioned was the process of buying a car, an exciting and stressful task for most adults. After researching the car you are interested in and deciding on the price range you are willing to pay, stepping into a car dealership to make your purchase seems to be the hardest part. I’ve had many people tell me that they had their whole car buying experience planned out but ended up leaving the dealership unsatisfied and somehow feeling duped. Car salesmen are notorious for selling customers what they believe is the best for them rather than what the customer requests. Some car salesman have no problem “lying” to customers in order to make sales. Students who understand what rhetorical analysis is would be better equipped to combat a situation of being misled in a sales transaction.

The last significant thing I’ve [re]learned this semester is the importance of helping immigrants and visitors to America transition into their new lives. Working with students at the ELS center was a very rewarding experience and one that I think all Americans should experience. Since many of our ancestors immigrated to this country, Americans should be more welcoming of newcomers. Instead, much of the new stories you hear today are about intolerance and hate. I’d like to think sharing in the immigrant experience with someone starting a new life here would help to change people’s minds.

Write about what you'd like to write about. But write!

Wow! A chance to write about anything? This is exciting, yet terrifying. In just one semester of graduate school, I’ve become used to writing to some sort of prompt. Writing has become a part of my daily routine; in actuality, I’m writing when I’m eating breakfast and when I’m driving. I write when I’m watching television and when I’m walking in my neighborhood. What I mean is that I am constantly composing thoughts that may take the form of written words but more often than not remain strings of thoughts.

Many of my friends write blogs where they discuss with friends and strangers every nuance of their life. Dinner plans, reviews on the latest movie, and rants about their jobs are just a few subjects discussed. Gone are the days where we pick up the phone and ask one another about our lives. There’s no need with blogs and other social media platforms. This is problematic to me because it takes the element of surprise and genuine interest out of our interactions. I like to think that I’m still old-fashioned because I refuse to chronicle my every move on the internet, but, I think I’m really just behind the times. It still baffles me when my grandmother calls me to inquire about an event I attended or about an outfit I wore because she saw it on Facebook. No, she doesn’t have a Facebook account; rather, she has family members that like to blab to her about my whereabouts. She means no harm with these inquiries because she sees Facebook as an extension of our face-to-face family interactions.

I mention all of this to say that multi-modal forms of communication have become a way of life for most Americans. Having the ability to see someone while talking to them in a different time zone is amazing. But, with all of these forms of communication, are we actually becoming closer to each other? Or is the technology pushing us away from one another? Are the conversations we have about unimportant occurrences? Or are they about meaningful experiences?

To combat this feeling of being in technology limbo, I’ve started to write physical notes and letters to friends and family. It’s exciting to me to draft my thoughts on paper, copy them over to my “nice” letter-writing stock, and mail it off. It’s also pretty expensive to do this since stamps are almost 50 cents each. I feel satisfied when my recipient opens my letter and is able to physically see and feel my thoughts. Maybe I feel like my words are permanent when written on paper? Do they have more meaning when transmitted this way?

This was truly a random post! I’ve thought about this subject for some time but hadn’t been able to put my thoughts into sentences. 

Thank you Dr. Rice for your wisdom and guidance this semester! I’ve really enjoyed this class and learned much more than I could have ever expected to. If I do teach in the future, I’ll have the guidance you provided as a road map to success.

What is the thesis to your article for this course? What support will you cite to help you make your case?

This assignment makes me both nervous and excited. I’ve never written an essay with the goal of publication, but am glad we are jumping into this during our first semester in graduate school. With that being said, I’m planning to approach this assignment by breaking it into several related parts.

My thesis isn’t solid yet, but I have a general idea of what I want to write about. Here are the ideas/themes I am exploring in relation to composition studies:

• Crossing boundaries between student and teacher.
• Crossing boundaries between cultures, languages, and geographical regions.
• Crossing boundaries across academic disciplines.

Some of the authors that we’ve read in class that I plan to use for my research are: Royster, Fulkerson, and Bizzell.

Part of the research I plan to undertake is on how these boundaries have shifted over the past few decades. Are the boundaries more transparent today?

Review the learning objectives for this course. What's one thing you've learned that connects to an objective and to your future job? Also, what sorts of training do you wish you could have / could HAVE had?

This course has taught me a great deal about the history of composition studies as well as how to teach composition to students. Although I don’t immediately plan to teach after completion of this degree, this is valuable information that will assist me throughout my career. All of the learning objectives for this course are important, but the one that I have learned the most about is audience awareness. In this course, we’ve learned to analyze audience and purpose in rhetorical situations and make appropriate choices.

Audience awareness has been a part of my vocabulary and factors into my practical application in the workplace. In my experience, audience awareness is utilized when writing for a client or customer. Composition programs worry if the lessons they teach their students will be retained and used in future workplace situations. I believe much of their worry isn’t warranted as today, more than ever, audience/user centered awareness is understood. For example, I worked for an automobile insurance company that valued making the customer’s experience a pleasant one their first priority. All portions of the customer experience, including letters sent out about coverage, website design, and documents related to accident claims were customer focused. We often asked, “How will the customer consume this information? Is it useful to them? Will it lead them to remain a customer?” Without taking these questions into consideration, the insurance company would not have been able to gain new customers or retain the current customer base. This was the first company I worked for after completing my undergraduate degree and I was excited to find that audience awareness was truly practiced in the workplace. Now that I reflect on my experiences at this company, I realize that many companies miss the mark where audience awareness is concerned. They often have no connection with their customers and can only speculate on what the customer expects. Now that I am back in the classroom, I am glad to see that audience awareness is still perceived as being important in the workplace. Without it, I suppose it would seem like employees are talking at the customer instead of having a conversation with them.

For this week’s blog, I also wanted to talk about the question Dr. Rice asked about training. If we are discussing training as a document instructor in the composition program, my wish is that I would have had a chance to review student writing prior to starting the position. My expectations of the type of writing I would see and my response to this writing are very different from the reality. On the job training is definitely a common practice, but in this composition program, I think it is a disservice to the student, as well as the instructors. In my case, I haven’t reviewed academic writing in over 6 years; instead, my most recent experiences have been with workplace communications, which are very different from student essays. Having an idea of what is expected of me before grading “live” student documents would have been very helpful.

Identify where you think students may fail in an assignment in your syllabus, and how you will use that as a teachable moment by design. If you didn't produce a syllabus, discuss the relevance of this week's readings to your future workplace.

I have many revisions to make to my syllabus assignment, but, I am fairly sure that one assignment I will keep is my photo essay/visual rhetoric exploration assignment. In this assignment, students will take a series of photos that describe an experience that is important to them. For example, describe the best birthday you ever had or describe how you felt after you received your first car. To help narrow the focus of the assignment, students will be required to complete this using no more than 15 photos. Photos can be ones taken by the student or photos found online that are okay to use under fair use laws. The purpose of this assignment is for students to learn how to express themselves without using words by taking into account the story that can be told by a series of photos. When selecting photos, I’d like students to take into account the order in which the present the photos as well as the emotions the photos will likely evoke from their audience of fellow students.

I think this is an assignment where students may falter because the format will be very unfamiliar to them and will require a different type of thinking to accomplish successfully. Also, this assignment will require students to reflect in a way that they may not have before. If a student is coming into my course straight out of high school, this may be the first time they’ve been asked to reflect on their life in this manner. We are a culture that takes a multitude of photos, but how often do we stop and reflect on them other than the surface message they present? My hope is that students will find this assignment to be a rewarding experience and will aid in their development as writers by opening their eyes in different ways.

I suppose failure in this assignment would be if a student doesn’t delve deeply enough into their photo analysis and the sequence of their essay doesn’t make sense. How would I make this a teachable moment? I think the best way to go about this would be to ask students to think about how events are normally sequenced in their lives. For example, if you are taking pictures outdoors, watch the positioning of the sun in your photos. If you are selecting photos from different places (personal collection plus photos found on the internet) how are you connecting them together? Do they flow well or do they seem disjointed? Life events generally have a logical flow—this essay assignment should also have the same logical progression of events.

List 5 terms you don't quite know yet how to define from our final keywords list. Next identify three in other students' blog you do know how to define, and comment on them there in those blogs.

Here are five terms that I am not yet able to define:

1. Peer evaluation
2. Empowerment
3. Errors and expectations
4. Intertextuality
5. Marginalization 

What is one assignment you will include in your syllabus assignment that uses collaboration and/or technology and/or other things Yancey, Selfe, Breuch, Bruffee, or Shaughnessey have discussed?

I like Bruffee’s ideas of peer influence through collaborative learning and think that the methods he describes are a must for all first year composition classes. From my experiences as a DI and from hearing about CI experiences with students, I believe that a combination of in person and virtual collaboration is necessary for students to remain engaged.

Many first-year composition classes follow a traditional model: the instructor decides which material is appropriate for the students to learn and the students respond by composing a response in writing. I think this method stifles creativity and doesn’t create an environment where students have their opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the outcome of the class. Also, students often don’t have the opportunity for an open discussion on what worked well in their assignment and what didn’t when assignments are graded and returned to students without pre-submittal instructor feedback. Rather than waiting for this feedback to come after an assignment has been graded, I think it would be helpful for students to participate in a peer review and mock pre-submittal review of an assignment before it is turned in. This would teach students how to give and receive feedback. I haven’t yet fleshed out all of the details, but if I were to include an assignment like this in my syllabus project, I would structure it as a three part project.

The first part would be a virtual peer review session that requires students in groups of 3-4 to pair up and revise a document real-time using a tool like Google Docs. The document chosen for them to revise would be no more than 2-3 pages. These are the goals I would set for the sessions:

• Develop their own analytical skills
• Become better proofreaders
• Learn how to take advice on suggested edits from a peer and decide which edits to proceed with
• Become more comfortable with the kinds of edit requests they might encounter later in their academic or professional careers

The second part of the assignment would be a mock pre-submittal review of the document that was peer reviewed. The students in each peer review group would meet with the course instructor and discuss the draft document. This session would help the instructor see the thought processes of the students; in turn, the students have an inside look at what instructors are looking for students to accomplish with their writing. In addition, it will encourage students to meet with their instructors for feedback on their assignments before submitting them. After this session, the students would set up a final session through Google Docs to finish up the document.

The last part of the peer review assignment would be a brief in-class presentation where each of the small groups would discuss what they learned from the assignment. 

Engage in discussion about something that captured your attention over the past few weeks in the course. Relate it back to specific class discussions, readings, and your grading/teaching when possible.

Back in Week 3, we all learned about the origins of a larger conversation about collaborative learning. Kenneth Bruffe notes that around 1982, the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) included a discussion topic that mentioned collaborative learning. Collaborative learning appeared as item eight or nine in a list of ten; a year later, it made it on the list again as the first item. Bruffe continues to open his essay by noting that sometimes collaborative methods work, and that sometimes they don’t. Every classroom interaction is unique and an instructor can only gauge the effectiveness of collaborative learning through experience. As Bruffe clearly notes, there is not a recipe that can be given to successfully navigate through the process. He instead urges educators to learn the history of collaborative learning in order to improve it and demonstrate how valuable it is.

In the 1970’s, American colleges began to see a new type of student: one that should have no problems succeeding based on a review of their credentials but, in fact were experiencing the same problems of adapting to the traditional conventions of the college classroom that the less academically prepared students were. One key point that Bruffe outlines is the fact that many undergraduate students refused to take advantage of the tutoring and counseling help offered on campus. The colleges explored several solutions to these problems, including: making it mandatory for students to attend these help sessions, implementing sink-or-swim programs to weed students out, and peer tutoring. Of these methods, peer tutoring proved to be the most helpful and led to results that showed students’ work usually improved when they received help from fellow students. Students that provided help in these peer sessions also benefitted by learning from the other students and gaining experience helping others in a teaching environment.

As a current graduate student that has temporarily stepped out of the workplace, I’ve become used to an environment of frequent collaboration, review cycles, and knowing when to ask for help. At my company (a large federal government contractor), my primary job duties were to oversee and coordinate the various stages of the proposal life cycle process for each proposal assigned to me. Some of the tasks given to me were to gauge when to bring in editing, desktop publishing, and graphics support; in addition, I provided training support, lessons learned feedback, and even printed and packaged the final proposal for delivery to the government customer. In all of these tasks, I participated in collaborative learning and teaching. We shared knowledge gained from each project we were tasked with completing and created an internal library of best practices. I would consider this work environment to be a great example of how the principles used in a collaborative composition environment (specifically one that implements peer reviews) can be beneficial. In most workplace settings, projects cannot be finalized without peers to review them. I’ve worked on projects that were important enough to the company’s goals for business development that the CEO sat in on milestone reviews and offered feedback on ways to improve a proposal. The feedback was given in a way that was helpful, not from a place of “do this or else.” Without the collaborative learning taught in settings like college composition courses, students won’t be able to settle in as employees in the workplace that contribute meaningfully to their company.

I suppose my idea of peer reviews in practice for Texas Tech’s ENGL 1301 course would be that in addition to students’ once a week in class session with their instructor, they would also meet with a Document Instructor (DI) one day a week, similar to the way recitation sessions for science courses meet. At these DI-run sessions, students would receive additional instruction on lessons from class; furthermore, sessions would also include a period where students worked together in small groups to peer review each other’s work. The environment would be informal and would function as a workshop that prepares students for submitting their best efforts as final versions of their assignments. In this scenario, the students learn to trust their own work through analysis of each other’s assignments, and DIs are given an opportunity for classroom instruction before they are required to instruct in their second year of the English department’s graduate assistanceship program. I think this approach is feasible and provides an alternative to the standard in-class group work assignments that often result in some students working harder than others.

Response to Bailey Cundiff’s Extended Analysis Document: Google Docs and Writing Instruction

For this week’s blog post, I read Bailey Cundiff’s Extended Analysis assignment titled, “Google Docs and Writing Instruction.” Google Docs is a free online word processing program that allows multiple users to simultaneously collaborate on a single document. Bailey notes that this feature makes Google Docs more useful than Microsoft Word for writing instruction. Instead of writing being one sided, immediate feedback and instruction is given. This increases students’ sense of collaboration and provides insight into instructors’ methods of editing and revision. Research shows that students who participated in online writing activities with Google Docs demonstrated increased improvement on their final documents.

One important point from Bailey’s research is that researchers acknowledge that the internet is this generation’s defining technology for literacy and learning; as a result, new technologies require new literacies. I feel that teaching styles should shift to embrace this new technology so that students feel like instructors are meeting them halfway. Students want to feel connected to the work they produce and I think this is an excellent way to create that connection.

I also found the section on collaboration to be helpful. Students having the ability to watch their ideas take different forms and be read in different ways is an invaluable experience. Also, rather than having an instructor “preach” at them about what changes need to be made, students are forced to participate in the revision discussion. If there are concerns about voicing an opinion in a face to face conversation, the online revision session should alleviate them. An audience is still present and in the moment, but, there’s a “wall” of technology to help shy students remain engaged.

These two points from Bailey’s research made my thoughts shift to our First-Year Composition students at Texas Tech. After participating in my first tutoring sessions last week, I was excited, and felt like I had a direct impact on students’ work. We worked together on creating thesis statements and I was able to give immediate, constructive feedback. Unfortunately, probably less than 10 percent of the students enrolled in ENGL 1301 show up for in person assistance. To encourage participation and interest, I believe working in a collaborative tool like Google Docs would be best. This way, students who want the immediate feedback but still uncomfortable coming in person can still receive assistance. It would give them the feeling of a “big brother” watching to make sure they stay on course with their writing.

Out of curiosity, I started searching the web to see which universities have started to use Google Docs as a way to work with students on their writing. Here are a couple of places that are currently using Google Docs:

• UCLA: http://wp.ucla.edu/index.php/home/services. The writing center here currently holds in person and online sessions. The online sessions are set up just like the in person sessions and seems to have the same level of interaction. I found it very interesting that the appointments for the online sessions allow the same 50 minutes as the in person session. Also, a draft of your writing assignment is not required to meet online! You can brainstorm together just like you would in person.
•  Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, Kansas: http://www.jccc.edu/student-resources/tutors-accessibility/writing-center/online-writing-lab.html: This program is based out of a community college! They appear to have the same set up that as a larger university system (like UCLA). I appreciated that this online writing lab (OWL) provided a set of guidelines and expectations for students. I believe this to be imperative as both the tutor and student should be aware of what is expected during the session.

Overall, I found Bailey’s research to be insightful and very thought provoking. It leads me to wonder if Texas Tech will in the near future adopt online writing collaboration as a way to reach more students. As a current Document Instructor, I know I would be very amenable to helping students this way!

What is andragogy, and how might the approach help in teaching FYC?

Andragogy is a term coined in 1833 by a German teacher named Alexander Kapp. Kapp used it to describe elements of Plato’s education theory. The word andragogy is rooted in the Greek words andr- (man) and agogos (leading). Kapp’s definition was disputed and fell out of use until a report was written by Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy in 1921 that argued, “adult education required special teachers, methods, and philosophy”; as a result he used the term andragogy to refer to these special requirements. Decades later, Malcolm Knowles redefined andragogy with five assumptions that adult learners differ from child learners: self-concept, experience, readiness to learn, orientation to learning, and motivation to learn. Knowles’ explanation of these assumptions is:

•          Self-concept: Maturation leads to a focus on being a self-directed human being instead of a dependent personality
•          Experience: Maturation also brings experience that becomes a resource for learning.
•          Readiness to learn: Learning becomes focused on the developmental tasks of a person’s social roles.
•          Orientation to learning: With maturity, a person starts to apply the knowledge they’ve gained and their learning style shifts from one of subject-centeredness to problem centeredness.
•          Motivation to learn: Maturity brings the internal motivation to learn.

I agree wholeheartedly with the distinction between child learners and adult learners. In America, as children, we aren’t given a choice about going to school; instead, structured learning is a forced activity that begins around age 4. Most of us don’t question why schooling is required, we just participate. Frankly, I enjoyed the routine of it all: waking up at the same time each day, eating breakfast, walking to the bus stop with my friends, riding the bus, etc. Until it was almost time for me to graduate from high school, I perceived school as something you “just do.” Maybe I felt this way because school was easy for me. I enjoyed learning, and like most children, soaked up information like a sponge.

College introduced me to the ability to choose what I wanted to learn, where I wanted to learn, and in many cases, how I wanted to learn. Like many of my classmates, the main reason I chose to go to college was to learn skills that would allow me to work in a career that was mentally stimulating and offered financial stability. It was during my time as an undergraduate that the assumptions Knowles outlines about adult learners applied to me. Most of my professors pushed us to consider how our lessons related to real-world scenarios. They encouraged us to apply the knowledge we gained not just to situations in academia, but also to current events. We learned so that we may help solve the world’s problems and teach others how to do so.

Andragogy is the best approach to take with First-Year Composition as it forces students out of their comfort zone and pushes them to think about their role as an adult and possibly, a future leader. For many students, applying the knowledge they’ve learned is difficult; after all, K-12 doesn’t teach you how to think outside of the box. I think of early adulthood as being at a crossroads in life: either you decide that you’re done learning, and have no use for additional knowledge; or, you keep an open mind and recognize that knowledge doesn’t have a “fill level.” I believe having the motivation to learn is the most important assumption Knowles makes. If the subject matter that FYC students at Texas Tech study isn’t related to current events, or issues their age group are facing, I think it will be nearly impossible to keep their interest.

*Background information on andragogy from: http://infed.org/mobi/andragogy-what-is-it-and-does-it-help-thinking-about-adult-learning/

Detail your philosophy of composition.

I’m not ashamed to say that my philosophy of composition is already evolving from what I thought it was a few days ago. Last week, I believed the expressive philosophy was the best way to go about teaching composition. What appealed to me most was the emphasis being placed on the writer, rather than the traditional idea of audience emphasis. As of now, my philosophy of composition is a mimetic-rhetorical hybrid. In Richard Fulkerson’s Four Philosophies of Composition, he notes that a mimetic philosophy is the connection between good writing and good thinking. As we discuss in almost each class session, writing starts before a pen is ever touched to paper. Without the ability to think critically and analyze, your writing will be flat, one-dimensional and not a true reflection of the world you live in. Something else to consider with the mimetic philosophy is its emphasis on teaching sound reasoning as a best practice. In addition, the ability to write well stems from knowledge already known and research performed in pursuit of additional knowledge. So, the practical side of me can appreciate the mimetic philosophy as I believe everyone, at all levels of education, has the ability to work within this philosophy. The rhetorical composition philosophy is also valuable to me because it emphasizes that writing is “good” when it has been adapted to have the desired effect on an audience. This allows us to include blogs, social media communications (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), emails, and other forms of informal writing in what can be considered “good” writing. Too often students are told that academic published works are the examples of good writing that they should strive to emulate, but for many students, they cannot relate to the texts they are assigned in the classroom. It is more helpful to students to take foundational texts and apply the knowledge they gain from them to situations they experience daily.

Here are the two values that are most important to me:

1. Teaching students to learn for life, not just the classroom: When teaching students, don’t assume that your influence over them ends after the last assignment is turned in and grades are submitted. What would you like for students to take from a course? How can they apply some of the knowledge they’ve learned to real-life situations? I think this is especially important when working with K-12 students since many of them will not continue their formal learning at a college or university. I also like to think of this as a student-oriented approach.

2. Providing students with a safe space and the appropriate atmosphere for learning: I want students to approach learning in my class not just as a requirement, but also as a way to safely express their ideas. After reading the BA1 essays from Texas Tech’s First-Year Composition program, I was disheartened to see how many students had been told they were bad writers. Many students even shared that their previous instructors did not attempt to help them become better writers; instead, instructors were more concerned about making sure they hit all of the points that their state-approved lesson plans required of them. Some students even wrote that they believed they were terrible writers and had no hope of improving; in fact, the ultimate goal was to “just pass this class.” Fortunately, I didn’t have any experiences like this in my high school years. All of the teachers I had were caring professionals who were willing to go the extra mile and make sure that each student was given the tools they needed to succeed.

I plan to enter back into the industry after completing my Master’s degree but gave this blog post a good deal of attention. I see myself teaching after gaining a few more years of experience in the workforce so will hold on to these ideas I’ve come up with. I will also take note of the ideas my 

Based on your teaching philosophy (which may change over time), what are types of assignments which you would include in a FYC syllabus?

Out of all the teaching philosophies that we've learned about, the new rhetoric/epistemic rhetoric philosophy appeals to me most. I agree with the idea that knowledge is not simply in existence waiting for me to retrieve it. Truth is dynamic and is created with the interactions of players in the communications process: the writer, speaker, audience, reality, and language. Further, the data from truth must be structured and organized in order to be interpreted. I believe this philosophy allows students to understand that their thoughts and conclusions are valid and open to their own interpretation. Collaboration from student to student and instructor to student should be encouraged.

The most important assignment I would include in my syllabus is a bi-weekly free writing exercise. Free writing would be conducted every other week for the first 30 minutes of class and during this period, students would be allowed to write about any topic they wish. The goal of this assignment would be for the students to stretch their mental "legs" and write without regard to grade or fear of judgment from their peers. I believe that free writing instills confidence in students and gives them a starting point for future writing assignments. Although I wouldn't make this a mandatory step, I would encourage the students to share their writing with each other through a class collaboration website.

Another assignment I would add to my syllabus is an observation exercise. For this assignment, students would be required to reach out to another professor or high school teacher of English or composition and request to observe them teaching a class. I believe this would provide students with different perspectives of how classes are taught and allow them to see how other students learn with different teaching methods. Part of the assignment would be to have the observation class complete an anonymous survey asking them about their experience in class and to provide suggestions for improvement.

I would also include a major research paper in the syllabus. This assignment will teach students about academic research, test their critical thinking processes, and push them to organize their thoughts in a well-thought, coherent manner. Research papers can be a great way to see how much a student has learned over the course of a class and will teach them how to budget their time and plan for this submission over the course of a semester. I would plan for mini assignments during the semester that break down the research paper into manageable pieces. For example, I would include an assignment that asks students to provide the sources they plan to use as a Works Cited page. To encourage students to improve in their writing, I would allow one revision to the research paper after the initial grade is given. Feedback from the instructor would be geared towards helping the student correct any mistakes they made.

What is the most difficult thing to teach in the teaching of writing, and how do you go about teaching that?

Unlike many of my classmates, I have no experience teaching students. So, I have no direct experience in how difficult it can be to teach others how to write. I do however, remember the difficulties I and other classmates had in our earlier years learning how to write well. The troubles we had makes me feel very sympathetic towards the students' papers that I am grading as a Document Instructor for the First-Year Composition program.

As a high school student, in many of my classes, I had teachers who were interested in developing our ability to think critically. With these lessons, we were allowed the choice of either writing essays in response to a prompt or of presenting orally (and with visual aids) a response. I believe my teachers wanted to provide this option as a way for students to choose the way they felt most comfortable expressing themselves. At the time, I didn't realize what was most important to my teachers was that we learned how to explain our analysis of a text to an audience. I usually chose to write my analysis in essay form as presenting in front of class caused me a lot of anxiety back then. Fast forward to my undergraduate years and I found myself knee deep in papers but rarely presenting my analyses orally. I found myself wishing for a chance to present my thoughts orally.

What I'm getting at is the difficulty of going back and forth between written and oral communication when trying to write a coherent and well written response. Many times students are told to give a response as a writing assignment but not shown how to pull the thoughts from their heads and organize them well on paper. This is very evident in the students' responses I read from the 1301 classes. Many of them have great and well-thought out responses to the writing prompts but have no idea how to organize them on paper. Much of their text is written as a direct stream of consciousness expression.

When I think about bridging this gap and teaching students how to properly express their thoughts on paper, I draw a blank. I ask myself how I'm capable of doing it and can't give a ready response. Is the problem the revamped curriculum present in modern schools' standards of learning goals? Is it more important to test students based on a multiple choice test that is intended to determine what an acceptable standard of learning should be?

I'm hoping that at the conclusion of this course I'll have a better idea of how to answer this question. Or, at the very least, a way to help high school and college students see what their writing is missing.

what is rhetoric? what is the history and theory of rhetoric? What do you want to do with the content from this course?

I think of rhetoric as the effective use of speech and written word to persuade or influence an audience. Contrary to popular belief, politicians and other public figures are not the only users of rhetoric – everyone uses it. Although I didn't realize it at the time, I used rhetoric to persuade my family to allow me the privilege of buying my first car and taking it with me to college. I can still remember compiling a list of reasons that made this a great idea as well as a list of objections I was most likely to face with my researched responses to them. Ultimately, I was able to purchase the car I wanted and drive it 5 hours away from home to my college campus. This is a simple example of how rhetoric can influence an audience to give the expected outcome. I would argue that rhetoric and critical thought is used by humans as soon as they have a basic command of their native language and start to form opinions about themselves and the people who make up their small but very influential world.

The Sophists, Isocrates, Plato, and Aristotle began the formal study of rhetoric in Greece during the fifth century B.C.E. This early start was then built upon by Romans, specifically Cicero and Quintilian. Out of this Roman influence we began to see the five-stage process of writing: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. These five stages are still used in modern times for the writing and speech-making processes. Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ are well-known examples of orators who used these five stages of rhetoric to shift perceptions and beliefs of people. They also both used ethos, pathos, and logos in their speeches and lectures.

During the nineteenth century, rhetoric in the United States retained the Scottish idea of belles lettres shifted away from primarily speaking as a form of communication and began to incorporate writing into rhetorical studies. Prestigious institutions like Harvard adopted this practice, which caused other institutions to follow. Until the era of progressive education, not much changed with this model.

This course will challenge my critical thinking and writing skills and encourage me to place a greater emphasis on the steps to becoming a good writer (brainstorm/plan, create a draft, revise, edit, and publish). I also plan to use the information I learn from Dr. Rice and my peers to help students become great writers and great critical thinkers. Just think – how well do you write if you can’t think critically? And how well do you read if you can’t write well?

In addition, what I learn in this class will assist me when I re-enter the professional world. I plan to transition into writing proposals for government contractors and for non-profit organizations. Though the government and non-profits are two very different audiences, I think that much of the theories related to composition will apply to both. In particular, persuasive writing is needed in both situations to urge the recipient of the proposal or grant to choose the proposal the proposal I submit.