I am mostly interested in the teaching of rhetoric, as a grammatical construct. Micciche’s article, “Rhetorical Grammar” really highlighted some of the problems associated with traditional grammar instruction. Belief that students will only become better writers through the frequent and varied acts of reading and writing, Micciche makes the case for rhetorical awareness in place of a grammar lesson. Specifically, we will be looking at the rhetorical situation in readings to better analyze our own writing.
The lesson will be designed for a 104-105 English class at SFSU. I believe that many of these students will be Directed Self Placed into this class, essentially recommending themselves for a class that gives more time to Freshman Composition. These students likely view themselves as weaker students in English, thereby placing themselves in a longer program. The class itself will be diverse. Likely, there will be students considered late and early arrival Gen 1.5ers, racial and gender diversity, with students who have had different learning backgrounds. Likely, the population will consist of several learning types (auditory, visual, kinesthetic, etc) with a few students who might have learning disabilities
As mentioned earlier, there is likely to be a pretty wide mix of students’ ethnic/racial backgrounds. Some students in the class might be more comfortable with AAVE, or Chicano English, or some other discourse not traditionally given merit in the academic discourse. The gender mix of students is likely to be mixed relatively close to 50/50. Due to the location of the school, it is more likely that students will be liberal minded, but a few conservative voices will likely become a strong undercurrent of tension in the class. Because we will be dealing with varied purposes and audiences in our reading for this lesson, this diversity is a special consideration as the diversity in he class has the ability to cause further tension in our work.
Thus bringing me to some of my lesson ideas. With the Trayvon Martin case causing immense debate among a wide variety of media contexts to the random outspoken individual, this is the perfect opportunity to develop a lesson on rhetoric. At another time in history, I would choose some other piece of intrigue nd debate, but for now this works well.
I am going to take blurbs of writing about the case and give them to the students. They will try to identify, with limited information, who the writing is written for, who it was written by, and we will begin to identify some of the techniques each writer utilized to persuade their reader.
While I am not exactly sure how I am going to frame the lesson, I know I want to get the students to talk to one another (not depend on teacher as lecturer), I want the students to do some writing afterwards, but also to look at some of their writing as a comparison of the lesson we are doing. I also want this lesson to come early enough in the year that students will be expected to think of these things for every future reading and writing experience. This lesson is a good segue to develop commonplace books, if I decide to assign them in class. *Commonplace books ask the students to copy, word for word, writing that stands out to them and analyze why they chose these passages. Supposedly helps students to become better readers and writers as they acknowledge the style created in each writing piece.
I think that you and I are coming from the same place in designing these plans. It seems like you have a nice context for the lesson and are designing it so that what you are teaching is touched upon by throughout the semester.
ReplyDeleteThe subject matter that you are choosing seems pretty provocative as well. I might be concerned with some conflicting ideas arising within the class about the entire Trayvon Martin incident. Although, I imagine that if the lesson is scaffolded enough, it'll all go smoothly. I am slightly curious about why you are choosing this subject and the format of media to use, but I imagine that that will be explained in the rationale.
Since you are focussing on media, it might be interesting to see which media outlets are using specific rhetorical devices and to what end. Since objectivity can't really exist in the media, it might be interesting to discuss how these outlets are framing their stories and why.
I think your ideas to engage contemporary events is a great way to encourage critical thinking in a context outside of the institution of education. 'Bridging worlds of understanding' seems to be an emphasis in your teaching. I wonder what sort of writing assignment would encourage awareness of rhetoric in the media and also facilitate students' engagement with their own rhetorical strategies in writing? Should the assignment be an extension of the contemporaneous nature of the instruction part of the lesson? I'd look to some of the theorists who've written on writing as a form of social empowerment if you haven't already.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sean. This might be an excellent place to bring in Freire - even Chomsky - and their writings about the confluence of language and power. How one writes to convince someone with less power than one's self, or more, for example.
ReplyDeleteI love the connection to contemporary events! And I like the task. The challenge will be figuring out the learning objectives: How will they be able to apply this to their own writing? What writing problem to do they have before the lesson? What new thing will they be able to do after this lesson?
ReplyDeleteThe Trayvon Martin case is ideal for illustrating to students various rhetorical situations. Pieces ranging from brief, heated polemics to long, considered essays to poems to analyses of law have been written about the situation. Students will get an opportunity to see the breadth of professional writing styles out there. Also, of course, such an issue will get students talking in class. You might consider, as an extension of the dialoge that will happen in class, having students correspond with one another in letters or on a private Facebook page. This is an excellent, no-risk way for them to start generating and articulating ideas for their papers.
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