San Antonio Writing Project | Lennie Irvin |2011 Region 20 Writing Academy

Writing Academy I: Fundamentals for Promoting

College and Career Readiness in Writing

Dr. L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio CollegeSan Antonio Writing Project

San Antonio Writing Project | L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

My Teaching Background

•Community College English teacher since 1989

•Assistant Professor of English at San Antonio College where I’ve been since 1994

•PhD in Technical Communication and Rhetoric at Texas Tech University, with an emphasis in Comp/Rhet (2010)

•Co-Director, San Antonio Writing Project (Summer Institute 2004)

•Special interests: writing pedagogy, rhetoric, computers and writing, the role of reflection in the activity of writing, write to learn, college readiness

San Antonio Writing Project | L. Lennie Irvin, San Antonio College

• I teach Freshman Composition, Basic English II, and occasionally Technical Writing and Sophomore Literature

• Most of my writing classes are conducted 100% in the computer classroom

• My students often are first generation students in college and have poor literacy skills. A significant number are minority students who might be considered “non-traditional.

• Nearly 100% of my students are struggling to balance work and school.

My Teaching Context

So Why Are We Here? What’s our “Mission?”

Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board

College Readiness Initiatives

Closing the Gaps by 2015

Building Bridges to Success: An Action Plan to Transition Adult Basic Education Students into Postsecondary Education and Training (Jan. 2010)

Developmental Education Plan (2009)

Link to THECB College Readiness Initiatives site

What’s at Stake?”Compared to other states and the nation, Texas faces unique

educational challenges that require immediate attention in order for the state to maintain a competitive edge. As examples: -- Over 21 percent of adults in Texas have less than a high school diploma, as compared to 14.8 percent for the nation. --More than 40 percent of adults who lack a high school education also have less than an eighth grade education. --There are more than 1.2 million adults in Texas who speak English poorly or do not speak it at all.

Policymakers need to consider the potential benefits to the individual and to the state when making decisions about the state’s ABE program. Based on an economic analysis of Closing the Gaps by 2015 conducted by The Perryman Group in 2007, if only 100,000 participants in ABE move on to higher education, the state could create 163,680 new jobs that would add $31 billion to the gross state product. This would translate into a $20 billion increase in the state’s total personal income.”

From “Adult Basic Education: Aligning Adult Basic Education and Postsecondary Education.” THECB. 30 Sept. 2008

Who Are We Talking About?

Those who pass the GED exam or graduate high school, yet “fall off the bridge” when they get to college and place into Developmental English (i.e. remediation).

Those who manage to get into Freshman Composition, but end up dropping or failing the class.

What can we do to help more of these students place directly into Freshman Composition and succeed once they get there?

How can we better prepare students who are in GED classes, or high school, or college remediation for college-level writing?

Discovering a Set of Holistic Learning Objectives for a

CCR Curriculum

Experiment—

Can we discover the characteristics of poorly prepared writers?

What can we see IN THEIR WRITING that “defines” them as “not ready?”

Characteristics of Poorly Prepared Writers

--word choice, vocabulary--redundant--poor planning, not thought out--development, lack of being able to support with detail--lack of experience putting thought in writing--poor organization--paragraphing--lack of ability to focus and develop a single t hought--punctuation--abbreviations, surface errors--short sentences--lack of “essay sense” (generic knowledge)

-- --the vicious cycleDon’t have content and thoughts so they not able to generate an organized expression of their thoughts--thinking first or problems--typing, writing skills on a computer, tool proficiency--essay form--sentence variety, structure and length--sentence boundaries--1st draft, not editing--sense of supporting an argument--thinking about writing--poor reading skills

Experiment—part 2Can we look at college writing assignments and see what writers should be prepared to do:

What common things do these writing assignments ask students to do?

What common sorts of skills or strategies do students need to employ to perform these tasks?

Characteristics of College Writing Assignments

--obscure assignments--task awareness, decoding the task--vocabulary of the task--analyze--research--reading, critical reading--evidence based, --argument--handling and documenting outside sources (plagiarism)--1000 words

College Writing Assignments are “complex literacy tasks”

“What are usually called 'writing assignments' in college might more accurately be called 'literacy tasks' because they require much more than the ability to construct correct sentences or compose neatly organized paragraphs with topic sentences. […] Projects calling for high levels of critical literacy in college typically require knowledge of research skills, ability to read complex texts, understanding of key disciplinary concepts, and strategies for synthesizing, analyzing, and responding critically to new information, usually within a limited time frame” (3-4).

Carroll, Lee Ann. Rehearsing New Roles: How College Students Develop as Writers. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 2002.

College Writing requires

• knowledge of research skills,

• ability to read complex texts,

• understanding of key disciplinary concepts,

• and strategies for synthesizing, analyzing, and responding critically to new information,

• usually within a limited time frame.

Argument: A key feature of college writing

“Far more often--like every other week--you will be asked to analyze the reading, to make a worthwhile claim about it that is not obvious (state a thesis means almost the same thing), to support your claim with good reasons, all in four or five pages that are organized to present an argument . (If you did that in high school, write your teachers a letter of gratitude.)” (“Some crucial differences between high school and college writing”)

Williams, Joseph and Lawrence McEnerny. “Writing in College.” University of Chicago Writing Program.

Based, then, on the characteristics that typify student writing that is “not ready” and the kinds of assignments students may typically have to write in college, what then should our curriculum be?

What general goals and objectives should we have for our teaching of writing?

Goals and Objectives of a CCR Curriculum

Research and a topicChoosing topics/ learning to handle writing task--engage them in a writing process--teach synthesis and analysis--clear rubric--planning, time/task management --writing across the curriculum--brainstorming/invention exercies--learning to evaluate sources--writing based from readings--using personal, expressive writing to transition to more analytic writing

--

--push their vocabulary--sentence level exercises--getting more development

_______________________________

Toward a Holistic Set of Goals for a Curriculum that Prepared College and Career Ready Writers--download and view the complete draft of ideas for this curriculum (organized and elaborated upon by Lennie Irvin)

--send additions or revisions to me

Crossing2College: A Resource for Preparing College-Ready Writers

http://www.sanantoniowritingproject.org/crosstocollege/

Discussion