revisionspiral
thoughts on blogs and textbooks
posted Wednesday, 30 August 2006
Finally, I have gotten done the task I’ve tried to do for three days: check student blogs. Every day this week when I’ve gone to check them, the College’s Internet connection has mysteriously gone down. But today, the College stayed connected to the Internet long enough for me to check and comment on an entire class’s blogs. (If you’re curious, you can read my students’ blogs, too. Just use the links in the left gutter.)
I decided not to do any community blogs this semester, mostly because there’s less set up and maintenance for me if all my students have individual blogs, and this semester, as I finish up my dissertation, I wanted to keep things simple. My big experiment this semester is with textbooks rather than blogs: I ordered two textbooks for my comp I classes and told students to buy either or both. It’s not necessarily that I couldn’t decide between the two books (Jack Rawlin’s The Writer’s Way and Donald Murray’s Write to Learn); it’s more that, having used both books, I can clearly see that The Writer’s Way works better for students who want concrete, specific exercises and tools, whereas Write to Learn works better for students who have a lot of hostility toward writing or writing classes. And for some students, neither book is a good fit. Perhaps next semester I’ll order three books.
Actually, that’s a distinct possibility. I just rediscovered Sheryl Fontaine and Cherryl Smith’s Shoptalk for College Writers, which was sitting, very dusty, on my shelf. The edition I have is from 1999, and from what I can tell from some quick research, the book never came out in a second edition. It was published by Harcourt Brace, which is now a subdivision of some other publisher. I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to order the book for next semester with it being so old. Anyway, it’s an interesting book, with faults and weaknesses but lots of strengths, including an emphasis on reader response. I wonder what kind of chaos would ensue if I did order three books and give students the option of choosing one or two. A few years ago, I went to a presentation at 4Cs in which Becky Nugent talked about going into her comp classes on the first day with an armload of publisher samples and just having students pick a book to use for the next few weeks. After a while, students traded books. I might try that next semester, completely bypassing the bookstore.
I decided not to do any community blogs this semester, mostly because there’s less set up and maintenance for me if all my students have individual blogs, and this semester, as I finish up my dissertation, I wanted to keep things simple. My big experiment this semester is with textbooks rather than blogs: I ordered two textbooks for my comp I classes and told students to buy either or both. It’s not necessarily that I couldn’t decide between the two books (Jack Rawlin’s The Writer’s Way and Donald Murray’s Write to Learn); it’s more that, having used both books, I can clearly see that The Writer’s Way works better for students who want concrete, specific exercises and tools, whereas Write to Learn works better for students who have a lot of hostility toward writing or writing classes. And for some students, neither book is a good fit. Perhaps next semester I’ll order three books.
Actually, that’s a distinct possibility. I just rediscovered Sheryl Fontaine and Cherryl Smith’s Shoptalk for College Writers, which was sitting, very dusty, on my shelf. The edition I have is from 1999, and from what I can tell from some quick research, the book never came out in a second edition. It was published by Harcourt Brace, which is now a subdivision of some other publisher. I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to order the book for next semester with it being so old. Anyway, it’s an interesting book, with faults and weaknesses but lots of strengths, including an emphasis on reader response. I wonder what kind of chaos would ensue if I did order three books and give students the option of choosing one or two. A few years ago, I went to a presentation at 4Cs in which Becky Nugent talked about going into her comp classes on the first day with an armload of publisher samples and just having students pick a book to use for the next few weeks. After a while, students traded books. I might try that next semester, completely bypassing the bookstore.
And?
blogarama
