Response to "Frequency of Error in Current College Writing"

     This was an interesting read that refuted some current doomsday exhortations about the abysmal state of today's education system.  There's room for improvement...for sure...massive improvement, but the research conducted for this paper shows that student writing actually increased in length and remained consistent in number of errors in error between 1917 and 1986.  This demonstrates significant improvement  because production has almost doubled during the aforementioned years. Add to this fact, the high school graduation rate, while not good enough, has skyrocketed since that time.
     In addition, more good news...the students in the classroom represent a much more diverse body.  People from different cultures, with different first languages, home languages and dialects populate today's university classrooms, yet with a significantly larger number of language and cultural issues to address, instructors and students are still managing to maintain a standard set in a much less diverse classroom. I think that this information could actually be considered improvement in student writing over time.
     While we need to keep working toward implementing better techniques to serve our students, I think that the evidence in this paper is indicative of positive momentum in the educational system.  I know that there are a lot of dedicated instructors working hard to provide opportunities for historically underserved students.

Film English

Great website for incorporating short films into lesson plans.  Website contains clips and ready made lesson plans.  Materials are easy to customize for your purposes.

Film English

Response to “Facts, Artifacts and Counterfacts: Theory and Method for a Reading and Writing Course” by David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky

     The curriculum described in “Facts, Artifacts and Counterfacts: Theory and Method for a Reading and Writing Course” seems to me an excellent option for implementation in a basic writing classroom.  I particularly liked the heavy scaffolding of assignments and emphasis on timed reading and writing rather than on number of pages read or written.  I also thought the tasks that focused on locating different types of information were likely to be useful because they would guide the students toward skimming and scanning texts for specific information. In addition, the inclusion of the journal option that wouldn’t be graded was a really great way to get students to increase writing production in a low stakes scenario.  I think that gradually  increasing production—and revision—are the path to proficiency. The curriculum provides many structured, timed segments that focus on production and increased time spent reading.

     The curriculum also requires that students begin “interrogating texts” by instructing them not to underline information they think is important but to make a note in the margin or circle the page number so they can find the page again easily.  This is an excellent technique that will break the habit many students have of underlining information that seems important while reading without making a note about why it’s important. Then, revisiting the text without remembering why it’s underline—I’ve done this myself many times.

     In addition, the curriculum provides extension writing that connects the readings to the students’ lives by having them respond to themes in the text with examples from their own lives.  This makes the reading relevant to the students and they will, I believe, be more likely to engage with the text.  I can’t wait to be able to implement this type of curriculum in a class.  It seems likely to produce positive results.