Miller's Rhetoric Syllabus

http://tmiller.faculty.arizona.edu/eng_362_rhetorical_traditions

I have saved a copy of the syllabus in RIC/Courses on my desktop.

The Habits of Highly Productive Writers

Many writers I know love Joyce Carol Oates—some even refer to her as JCO, as if she were a brand as recognizable as CBS or BMW. But just as often, the mention of her name is met by groans and complaints about how much she’s written. Her productivity seems like an affront.

When someone’s doing a lot more than you, you notice it. It brings out your petty jealousy. And if you’re like me (occasionally petty and jealous), it might make you feel crappy about yourself. Which is, let’s face it, ridiculous. No one else’s achievements take anything away from yours, or mine. The fact that another writer is working hard and well should be nothing more than inspiration, or at least a gentle prod.

So I started to think about the practices of highly productive writers. What are the personality traits and habits that help people crank out the pages? Here are a few that occur to me:

They reject the notion of "writer’s block" the way others shun gluten. Some people are truly unable to tolerate that vilified protein, but many more leap after a culprit to explain their dyspepsia or inability to refrain from carby deliciosity. Maybe cutting out a big food group makes it easier to stick to a diet than being careful about portion sizes of crusty bread and pasta puttanesca. Certainly there’s a comfort in diagnosis, relief in the idea that suffering can be linked to a thing that others also get. Likewise, it’s a lot easier to say that the muse has gone AWOL than to admit that writing is hard and requires discipline and sacrifice.

Productive writers don’t reach for excuses when the going gets hard. They treat writing like the job it is. They show up, punch the clock, and punch out. Nothing romantic about it. They give themselves a quota; sometimes it’s butt-in-chair time, sometimes a word count. Simple math allows you to figure out how quickly 1,000 words a day adds up to a book-length work. These writers know how to use deadlines, whether external or self-imposed, to stay on track.

They don’t overtalk their projects. Some writers like to talk about writing more than they actually like to write. Others dine out for years on their topics—giving conference papers, writing journal articles, applying for grants—until they’ve all but lost interest in what they are supposed to be writing. One prolific academic writer told me that he often gets interested in something and spends a few months working before he realizes it’s not going to pan out. He puts it aside without ever having talked about it. Only once it’s well under way will he discuss it. I have been accused of being "secretive" about my work. I’m not; some pieces benefit from yammering, and others don’t.

They believe in themselves and their work. Perhaps it’s confidence, perhaps it’s Quixote-like delusion, but to be a prolific writer you have to believe that what you’re doing matters. If you second-guess at every step, you’ll soon be going backward. A writer I know likes to say that over the years he has "trained" his family not to expect him to show up for certain things, because they know his work comes first. You have to be willing to risk seeming narcissistic and arrogant, even if you don’t like to think of yourself that way. The work takes priority.

And they might hate themselves a little if they slack off. Along with the necessary arrogance and narcissism, a dollop of self-hatred goes a long way toward getting stuff done. You have to believe it’s your job to be productive and to feel bad if you’re not.

They know that a lot of important stuff happens when they’re not "working." I love this passage from Graham Greene’s novel The End of the Affair: "I was trying to write a book that simply would not come. I did my daily five hundred words, but the characters never began to live. So much in writing depends on the superficiality of one’s days. One may be preoccupied with shopping and income tax returns and chance conversations, but the stream of the unconscious continues to flow, undisturbed, solving problems, planning ahead: one sits down sterile and dispirited at the desk, and suddenly the words come as though from the air: the situations that seemed blocked in a hopeless impasse move forward: the work has been done while one slept or shopped or talked with friends."

Productive writers have been through the cycle enough to know it’s a cycle, and sometimes you figure out problems while you’re walking the dog. They know to trust that and don’t get twitchy when the pages stop piling up.

They’re passionate about their projects. Too much scholarly work is obviously produced without heat. Some academics take so long to finish a book they can barely remember what interested them about the topic in the first place. Productive people become impatient and seek out new thrills. They like to learn stuff.

Chipping away at something for years or decades can lead to a pile of dust or to a finely made and intricately tooled piece of art. It’s often hard to know which one you’re working toward. It can help to delude yourself into channeling Donatello or Brancusi even if what you’re looking at seems like a bunch of shavings.

They know what they’re good at. Dave Eggers wrote that for him, at least at the beginning of his career, writing fiction was like driving a car in a clown suit. It’s important to find the project and the approach that will work for you and will let you use your own real and valuable skills to best effect.

Perhaps academics find themselves traumatized by writing because they’re trying to sound like some "smart" version of themselves. Their writing comes off as inauthentic. Often, however, these same people can talk about their ideas in a way that makes you want to listen for hours. The best writing is a conversation between author and reader. Too much scholarly work reads like someone driving a car in a clown suit. If these folks could write more like they teach—be themselves on the page—the work would surely benefit.

They read a lot, and widely. I’m always amazed when professors say they don’t have time to read for fun. How else can you attempt to write something good? If you don’t think that your work should be a pleasure to read, most of us won’t want to read it. Productive writers (should) pay attention to craft and read to steal tricks and moves from authors they admire. Reading becomes a get-psyched activity for writing. Anyone who’s ever assigned (or done) an exercise in imitation knows that.

They know how to finish a draft. As with relationships, beginnings are exciting and easy, full of hope and promise. Middles can get comfortable. You fall into a routine and, for a while, that can be its own kind of fun. But then many of us hit a wall. Whether it’s disillusion, boredom, or self-doubt, we crash into stuckness. Productive authors know that they have to keep going through the hard parts and finish a complete draft. At least you’ve got something to work from.

They work on more than one thing at once. Of course, when you hit that wall, it’s tempting to give up and start on something new and exciting (see above, re: beginnings are easy). While that can lead to a sheaf of unfinished drafts, it can also be useful. Some pieces need time to smolder. Leaving them to turn to something short and manageable makes it easier to go back to the big thing. Fallowing and crop rotation lead to a greater harvest.

They leave off at a point where it will be easy to start again. Some writers quit a session in the middle of a sentence; it’s always easier to continue than to begin. If you know where you’re headed the next time you sit down, you’ll get there faster. There’s an activation-energy cost to get things brewing. Lower it however you can.

They don’t let themselves off the hook. If only I had three hours of quiet every day. If only I had the perfect office. If only my hair weren’t so frizzy. People often say to writers, "Oh, I’d love to write a book, if only I had the time," as if it’s merely a question of having a leisurely spell to sit noodling at your computer.

You have time only if you make it a priority. Productive writers don’t allow themselves the indulgence of easy excuses. When they start to have feelings of self-doubt—I can’t do this, it’s too hard, I’ll never write another good sentence—they tell themselves to stop feeling sorry for themselves and just do the work.

They know there are no shortcuts, magic bullets, special exercises, or incantations. I am suspicious of strategies that diminish the time and effort required to do good work. Write your dissertation in five minutes a day? Complete a book in 60 days? Maybe you’d like to try the KitKat Diet, or purchase a lovely bridge?

There are no tricks to make it easier, just habits and practices you can develop to get it done.

- See more at: http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Habits-of-Highly/150053/#sthash.egupstC0.dpuf

Teaching grammar

Andrews, Richard, et al. "The effect of Grammar Teaching on Writing Development." British Educational Research Journal. 32.1 (2006): 39-55.


Braddock, Richard, Richard Lloyd-Jones, and Lowell Schoer.  Research in Written Composition. Champaign: NCTE, 1963.


Dunn, Patricia A., and Kenneth Lindblom. "Why Revitalize Grammar?" The English Journal 92.3 (2003): 43-50.


Hartwell, Patrick. "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar." College English 47.2 (1985): 105-27.


Hillocks, George Jr. "What Works in Teaching Composition: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Treatment Studies." American Journal of Education 93.1 (1984): 133-70.?

Why I Write Bad (MILO B. BECKMAN)

The Harvard Crimson
November 21, 2014

I just turned in a final paper. When it was finished, I gussied up the spacing and switched the font to Georgia. I stapled it neatly at a 45-degree angle, with a professional-looking cover page on top. Before my TF takes in a single word, he can deduce that I’m a smart guy and he’s about to read a great paper.

Here’s the problem: It’s not a great paper. I didn’t have a lot of points to make, so I made them glamorously. I used lots of adverbs. My title has a colon in it. There are 21 words in an average sentence, six letters in an average word. An online analysis tells me I’m writing at a 16th grade level. My TF is gonna love it.

Steven Pinker wrote in the Chronicle recently that academics have their heads too far up their own rears to write well. They know so much, he says, that they can’t imagine what it’s like to be a layman. But I think the problem is more systemic than that. Academics put out lousy writing because they went through 20 years of schooling that rewarded lousy writing.

What causes this upside-down incentive system? It’s signaling, plain and simple. You don’t have time to write good papers, and graders don’t have time to read them. No one ever got fired for buying IBM, so they slap a check-plus on whatever looks good. Consciously or subconsciously, you tune your writing to do just that: to look good. Who cares if it actually is good?

This is why my academic writing stinks. I’ll hammer out a response paper the hour before it’s due, throwing in as many “normative”s and “dichotomy”s as I can muster. “Do I sound smart yet?” my writing pleads. It’s all icing—like the staple and the font choice—layers and layers of icing on a tiny, bland cake. My TFs will often tell me I’ve improved as a writer over the semester, when really I’ve just figured out which kind of bullshit they prefer. Why risk writing something good in the hopes it’ll be recognized as good, when I can write garbage I know will be recognized as good?

This is also why section kid bothers you so much. You roll your eyes when he ends every sentence with “by any stretch of the imagination.” He’s building a McMansion of words, all oversized and gaudy and totally empty. Your TF’s eyes glazed over at the first, “Just to run with that for a minute…” She’ll give him full marks for participation. You hate him for shamelessly playing the game. But can you blame him?

This is even a driving force behind grade inflation. In a world where good ideas get good grades, the average would be around a C. Real eureka moments don’t come often. But in a world where fancy words get good grades, any skilled hoop-jumper can learn the formula and churn out regular As.

This is dangerous. The high marks seem nice today, but when we get spit out into the real world we’ll see the harm it’s done. I’ve nearly forgotten how to write simply. When I’m not paying attention, I quickly recommence pontificating mellifluously. Your boss won’t want 12 pages double-spaced; she’ll want clarity and pith. Interviewers would rather you be a real human who says things like “chill” and “legit” than some academic robot who won’t stop talking about intents and purposes.

So why not get a head start and cut the crap now? Spend more time coming up with ideas and less time beautifying them. Start your paper when you hit a thesis you’re excited about, not when you think, “I could probably argue that.” If you have a good point to make in section, you’ll sound just as smart leading with, “I dunno though,” as with, “Just to push back on that.” And to paraphrase a proverb: If you don’t have anything to say, don’t say anything at all.

 It’s not our fault that the system’s broken, but it’s on us to fix it. We have to change our habits even if we’re incentivized not to. Yes, a high GPA will help you get a job, but it’s your skills that’ll help with every step after that. Don’t boost your grades by developing toxic habits. Develop good habits, and the grades should follow. When you bullshit, you’re just bullshitting yourself. Stop it. Write well. Milo B. Beckman ’15 is a government concentrator in Eliot House.

Rhet Map

http://rhetmap.org

Cool.

Top Five Books on Genre (from WPA-L)

Bawarshi, Anis S., and Mary Jo Reiff. *Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy*. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2010.

Bazerman, Charles, Adair Bonini, and Débora de Carvalho Figueiredo. *Genre in a Changing World*. Fort Collins, CO & West Lafayette, IN: WAC Clearinghouse & Parlor Press, 2009.

Berkenkotter, Carol, and Thomas N. Huckin. *Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication: Cognition, Culture, Power*. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995.

Devitt, Amy J. Writing Genres. *Rhetorical Philosophy and Theory*. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004.

Swales, John M. *Research Genres: Explorations and Applications*. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

What Doing Research Looks Like

Notes on Teacher Development

So this morning I am trying to think about teacher development, about my own development as a teacher. I feel like the story I am trying to tell in this book is wrapped up in my own process of development as a teacher, and I feel like I need to find someone who can help me talk about this. In other words, I felt the need, this morning, to do some research. To find other people who have studied what I’m interested in and see what I can learn from them.

Problem is, this means researching outside of my area of expertise and so I am basically a novice. I was fortunate to stumble upon a book that looks useful. And from this book, I was off to the personal website of the author, to see if she has written any articles that might be useful for me to look at. I found her and found an article and this lead me somewhere helpful. The article—well, within the first few pages, I knew I was onto something, but I was sort of also not on to something. I discovered a journal that might be useful for me—Teacher Education Quarterly—and I found, within the first few pages of her article some things that were definitely seeming to be on the right track.

The problem is, before I get to those, the problem is, this is a journal aimed primarily at people who teach teachers to become teachers, teacher education folks. So, I’m thinking, okay, I’m interested in the professional trajectory of folks in higher education, the journey that teachers in college settings go through, but perhaps these are similar to the journeys that teachers in the K-12 world go through. So, I’m following this source, allowing myself to look into it, within a given time-frame that I’ve established (a time frame whose end is quickly approaching!!!).

I felt like I was onto something on the first page of the article, when I discovered her research questions:

·      How does the pedagogical understanding of teachers grow or change over time?

·      What are some of the personal and professional influences on teachers' thinking?

These looked enormously promising! These are MY questions, as well, so I kept going.

Then, I stumbled upon something that looked REALLY interesting for me—and useful, although the dated nature of the material worries me a bit.

Levin references “a model of the development of teachers' thinking in the pedagogical domain.”

Development of teachers thinking. That’s what I want to know about. I want someone who can give me a model to help ME think about the development or trajectory of my own thinking, over time. As I encountered this framework and noted the names of the authors, so I could go look into their work myself, I felt myself growing really excited! And the firmness and confidence of this line really sort of blew me out of the water:

Since that time the model has been evaluated empirically in several studies (Animon, et al, 1985; Hutcheson & Anmon, 1986; Levin & Ammon, 1992, 1996) and found to represent the developmental trajectory of teachers' thinking about teaching and learning, behavior, and development.

Um, wow. This line suggest that not only is there a model out there, this model has been tested and proven, so to speak, empirically. Note the lack of “hedging” terms in that passage. So, this is a pretty good model, apparently. I stopped when I got to the bit about Appendix A and I scanned down to the bottom of the article to take a look. Maybe I should have gone out to look at the model itself, first? Or, this is the model. Okay.

So, I have spent a few minutes looking at this model and thinking about it. I note the word “cognitive.” She writes that this model is a “cognitive-developmental structure.” This is helpful. The word cognitive makes me think about mental growth or development and this is good, but as I spend some time with the table, I am interested, but I begin to realize that it’s not quite what I want. It’s helpful, but not quite what I want. The model seems to take the reader from empiricism through behaviorism to contructivism, with this last being the most highly-developed form of teaching. As I look at this model, I am asking myself if I do these things when I teach and where I fit into the framework, but I am also realizing that it’s not quite what I want.

And the word that I’m thinking about is the word emotional. I’m thinking about how teachers FEEL about their teaching and about their teaching journey. I’m thinking about how I feel about the kind of teaching I did early in my career and then as I progressed and then, also, now. It’s not just the cognitive growth or development that interests me. It’s the emotional development and disposition towards ones teaching that I want to learn more about. That’s the part I think about.

And so, there is new or more work to do, but first, I need to spend a bit more time with Levin’s article, just to be sure that it’s definitely NOT what I’m looking for.

Is this a dead-end?

Not really.

My concern going in was about the appropriateness of her research on K-12 teachers for me, given my interest in college-teachers. That concern is still there.

But, I’ve identified a journal I’d like to search in further and she has helped me to clarify my thinking about what I’m looking for or what I want to find. That’s a big part of the process it seems. You have a felt sense of what you want, but it’s hard to put into language. The revelation of the past 20 or so minutes, for me, is the realization that what interests me is both the cognitive development of a teacher but also how one FEELS about one’s teaching. The emotional development of a teacher.

--

Key Research Type: Case Study (what about in higher education?)

things that he is in flux about (35)

Goals and Pedagogical Beliefs

Developmental Stage Models (37)

“Still believed”

Not all teachers even identify-their sense of "self' as a teacher (Nias. 1989). (42)

Genre: Teacher Memoirs (Ayers, 1993)—see p. 45

Research on Teacher’s Professional Lives (46)

Stages of Development

Longitudinal studies

Essay collections, see Amazon.

What is a heuristic?

A heuristic is an alternative to trial and error. It is simply the codification of a useful technique or cognitive skill. It can operate as a discovery procedure or a way of getting to a goal. Many fields have them; for example, the scientific method is itself a heuristic, as is journalism's efficient Who? What? When? Where? Why? formula for collecting information. The important thing about heuristics is that they are not rules, wvhichdictate a right or wrong way, but are alternative methods for doing something-methods which often formalize the efficient procedure a good scientist or journalist would use unconsciously. Because they make an intuitive method explicit, heuristics open complex processes up to the possibility of rational choice. (Flower and Hayes, p. 45-51 "Problem-Solving Strategies and the Writing Process")

Sources that Make the Argument for WID/WAC

Alexander Astin, *What Matters in College: Four Critical Years Revisited*

George Kuh and Jillian Kinzie, *Student Success in College: Creating
Conditions that Matter*

Richard Light, Making the Most of College

Alice Horning's "The Definitive Article on Class Size" would also be useful. You can show directly the relationship between class size and learning. http://wpacouncil.org/archives/31n1-2/31n1-2horning.pdf

Findings from Research on Writing

Three lessons from the science of how to teach writing

* “Research-Based Practices and the Common Core: Meta-Analysis and Meta Synthesis,” (in press for The Elementary School Journal)--Steve Graham

Grad Syllabus: History of English Studies

ENG 591 History of English Studies: The Disciplinary Formation of Creative Writing, Literature, Linguistics and Rhetoric/Composition

More on WAC/WID

Model WAC_WID Programs

WAC/WID, General Education, and Assessment Report

More Resources on Turnitin.com

Plagiarism Resources from (CSU)

Includes a section on Turnitin.

Tossed Out (food waste)

Tossed Out

Jobs for English Majors

Common Jobs for Humanities Majors

Want to do what you love and get paid for it? Choose one of these majors

TurnitIn Article

Turn it Down, Don't Turnitin: Resisting Plagiarism Detection Services by Talking About Plagiarism Rhetorically

A Greatest Hits List for WAW (from “Process and Intention”: A Thirtieth-Year Reflection)--Richard Gebhardt

“Process and Intention”: A Thirtieth-Year Reflection (The Writing Instructor, December 2011)

"Process and Intention: A Bridge from Theory to Classroom” is rooted in a time when intuitive, experience-based awareness that we should "Teach Writing as a Process Not Product" (Murray 3) was bolstered by systematic research into the complexity of writing. Lots of years have passed since those days, so as a reminder, let me mention five 1970s researchers whose work seemed to me then (and still does, for that matter) to suggest a complex idea of writing as a dynamic interaction of brain, hand, and eye.

Janet Emig’s “Writing as a Mode of Learning” (1977) draws on work in psychology, physiology, education, and other fields to describe writing as a complex activity in which several different means of dealing with actuality—enactive, by doing (hand), iconic, via image (eye), and symbolic, through words (brain)--“are simultaneously or almost simultaneously deployed” (10).

Sharon Pianko’s “Reflection: A Critical Component of the Composing Process” (1979) emphasizes the importance, during writing, of reflection (e.g., pausing to rescan completed text to make changes, to bridge to more writing, to reflect on plans, etc.).

Nancy Sommers’s “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers” (1980) defines revision not as a separate, final stage of writing but as “a sequence of changes in a composition—changes which are initiated by cues and occur continually throughout the writing of a work” (45).

Sondra Perl’s “Understanding Composing” (1980) explores the concept of projective structuring by which writers measure against possible reader needs their intentions for a piece of writing and the direction in which they sense the piece is developing before them as they write.

Linda Flower’s and John Hayes’s “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing” (1981) offers a complex description of writing based on cognitive psychology, the most lasting element of which perhaps is the multi-box diagram a few pages into their article.

Key Phrases:

• the writing-process research movement
• blended cognitive/social approaches

Gebhardt's Own WAW Greatest Hits Contributions:

• “Initial Plans and Spontaneous Composition: Toward a Comprehensive Theory of the Writing Process” (1982)
• “Writing Processes, Revision, and Rhetorical Problems” (1983)
• “Changing and Editing: Moving Current Theory on Revision into the Classroom” (1984)
• “Computer Writing and the Dynamics of Drafting” (1986)

On Collaborative Writing (throughout the writing process)

“Teamwork and Feedback: Broadening the Base of Collaborative Writing” (College English, 1980)

Connections or FYS Course Ideas

A course about education and higher-education, in particular. This article could be the springboard for so many conversation and investigations.

Here's a book we could read.

Student Reviews of Humanities Career Books

Smart Moves for Liberal Arts Grads: Finding a Path to Your Perfect Career
(by Sheila Curran and Suzanne Greenwald)

I would recommend this book first and foremost because of it's accessibility. I know it might seem strange that this is coming before content, but it's not! My biggest problems that I have with books assigned for classes usually come down to this. It's my deciding factor on whether or not I like the book, and if I don't like it... well, I've already decided I'm not going to learn very much from it. I just can't enjoy books that feel like the author is working against my understanding of them. How as a student am I supposed to comprehend something in an area I may not understand very well if the author of the book is trying to communicate with me at a completely different level of language skill than I possess? Maybe this is not a very good attitude to take towards books, but I know a lot of other students probably feel this same way. Smart Moves is accessible, both in language and content. It's an easy read. It took me some time, but I didn't have to go back and reread and reread whole pages to understand what Curran was telling me.

I didn't really have any specific issues with this book. Sometimes I was less interested in a subject's story than others. This book is written in my favorite way that things are written: It did not build and build and build on certain assertions it made in the beginning, except for that Liberal arts grads do have plenty of opportunities and perhaps more than in other fields. I love books like this because they are the type that you can come back to later. I don't have to take it all in at once. I can read about one experience and skip to another and go back to the one I skipped. You can jump around in this book (except for the beginning -- it's good to read the beginning part in succession) Books that you have to read in one large chunk to get anything out of don't really stay on my bookshelf.

The last reason I would recommend this book was because I could see myself in many of the subjects that Curran wrote about and I think that is probably the most important thing to students who have graduated or are about to graduate. Half of the problem is being unable to visualize your career or yourself in any certain career. Curran gives many different accounts and I think there is someone to relate to in this book for everyone. When I read the accounts of the other liberal arts grads and I was able to visualize my career path choices, it made me confident in myself. It made the scary world of the recently graduated liberal arts student feel a lot less scary and more in reach. It wasn't just the accounts of these people also in my place, though. The whole first part of this book spends a good deal of time debunking "Myths" about the liberal arts degree. This is great because my confidence was affected by all of these myths in one way or the other -- and they're perpetuated by people who don't really know what they're talking about anyways. I don't know how many times I've heard from someone who knows little to nothing about an English degree tell me it was a poor choice on my part in deciding to attain one. And usually said person is working a job that I would never want to have in a million years, anyways. "Why would you go for English. You can't do anything with that." Um, why don't you take a step back and look at your career choices for a second before you insult mine?

(written by Katie Landry, spring 2014)

10 Things Employers Want You To Learn In College 
(by Bill Coplin)

 I would not recommend Bill Coplin's "10 Things Employers Want You To Learn In College" for students who are majoring in liberal arts. Although I have learned useful skills from the chapters, I found myself regretting choosing another book.

First, this book would be a great read for freshmen students or late seniors in high school. Coplin provides useful advice and tips. I wish I would have encountered the learnings from this book years ago. Because if that were the case, I could have build on the skills during my college years. He mentions how to be a better student and how to make the best out of your college years. He also provides advice on writing, verbal communication, networking, today's technology tools, life management, etc. This is why college freshmen should read this particular book. It really takes the time to explain what you need to do in college (in the beginning) in order to succeed in the end of your college years and, most importantly, the start of your career.

The second reason why I would not recommend this book is it has little or nothing to do with liberal arts majors. There are skills that can help a liberal arts major in the workplace setting and being a college student. However, it did not provide information or advice for English majors specifically. This book is for a general audience not a specific (besides college students). A student with an English Major would be more interested in learning the kinda of writing they would do in the workplace, how to do research for a journal or magazine or for a non-profit organization, which technology tools should they be comfortable with, and what are the different jobs available for English Majors, and what resources are available to them. This book does not ask or answer these questions.

Those are my two reasons why I would not recommend this book to students with a liberal arts major. I did not hate the book. I actually enjoyed reading it. I was marking up the text and putting post-it notes on the skills that I really want to work on. My only disappointment was that I was not a college freshman. The book is useful but more to a specific age group. And so, I decided to let my cousin, who is attending his first college semester at URI in the fall, borrow the book. I know he will learn from reading it.

(written by Madelyn Brito, spring 2014)

Life After College: A Complete Guide to Getting What you Want 
(by Jenny Blake)

Though the author does not deal specifically with life after college for liberal arts graduates but I would recommend Life After College: A Complete Guide to Getting What you Want by Jenny Blake for anybody graduating college in the near future. In her novel Blake covers almost all facets of a new graduates life, ranging from work to home life.

Blake’s section on adjusting to a new work place is something that I think any person entering the professional workspace for the first time would find useful. In this section Blake discuses the importance of finding balance in each day and how someone can make their work life meet their individual needs. Though what I found particularly interesting is on page 129 and 130 she gives useful tips about building a resume. A couple of things that stood out to me were that Blake says to focus on the “Impact” of previous work responsibilities rather than just giving a description. By doing this the employer will hopefully see the candidate as a dynamic force in the workplace that can incite change and progress rather than just being another worker. Another tip for building the resume was the suggestion of taking personality assessments. Blake says this is useful because the person applying will be able to have a solid grasp on their strengths and weakness as an individual and tailor that to fit in their resume.

Blake’s section on money also has a lot of helpful information to offer. On page 259 Blake has a section called, “The Four Step Budget” and it is a great and easy way for someone to create a budget for themselves. I created one for myself and I find myself being much more money conscious lately. In this section she also goes into how to generate some extra income. One suggestion she has is using Craigslist to your advantage. Blake says that by offering up services on the site (such as dog walking and tutoring) you can find yourself making a few extra dollars on the side that will relieve some of the pressures of paying bills.

 Relationships are also touched on extensively in this novel. Blake goes into how to balance family, home, and romantic relationships. She goes into the importance of finding the right roommate, how to go about dating as an adult without having the foil of school to rely on, and keeping a strong relationship with family. There is a ton of information and sound advice in these sections and it jives well with what I saw as the main message of this book: finding balance.

 So all in all, I enjoyed reading this book. It was easy to read and the Jenny Blake does and excellent job at involving the reader. There are also a ton of resources that are given for money management and tracking personal goal. I think that any newly graduated individual entering “the real world” for the first time would be able to pull something useful from these pages.

(written by Neal Beaudrea, spring 2014)

The Defining Decade
(by Meg Jay)

1.

I would recommend The Defining Decade by Meg Jay.

The interviews with her clients were very useful, it helped to validate her knowledge because it was clear she had experience in the field and her clients expressed sentiments that many undergraduates feel. This can help people feel less alone and show practical steps to take to ease such concerns., such as narrowing down potential careers by looking at qualifications and past experiences.

I found the chapter that dealt with inaction particularly helpful. I've had times where I thought that because I didn't have to have things figured out yet, I shouldn't even worry about trying right then. Jay makes clear that you can always be making progress, even if it's just baby steps. No, I can't reach all of my goals right this second, but there are little things I can do every day to make progress towards them.

Although the book as whole was informative, I think the chapter Every Body should have gone deeper into the issue of children and whether or not they are right for some people. I understand that timing for those who do choose to raise children is incredibly important (and it's great that she discussed it), but I would have liked some more coverage of what the people who don't have children will deal with, for example, biological clock comments and people telling you you'll change your mind later.

2. 

While I enjoyed reading Meg Jay's book, I'm not sure I would recommend it to future students taking this course. I say this for only a couple of reasons, but I think that my reasoning is justified based on the textual contents of the book.

First, I expected the book to have more of a focuson the scholar-to-adulthood transition. Sure, it provided insight into not feeding into cliche'sspoken to us by those with more seniority, but it felt like advice that I'd heard before. For some, it may be useful, but I cannot help but be somewhat baffled by how much of what was articulated in the text was common sense. 

Second, I thought that the text feeds too much into what twenty-somethings should be doing at their age. In one breath, Jay was attempting to debunk these "myths," while in the next she seemed to be going against her own advice. For example, on page 47 when she discussed Talia coming to see her while crying about whether she should be traveling in France, Jay responds "sort of...but sort of not." 

I think that her way of encouraging twenty-somethings to "rise above" societal norms collapses on itself in moments like the one I just mentioned. "Sort of...but sort of not" makes it seem as if she isn't sure of her own advice. I wish she was stronger in her convictions because I think it would have helped increase the significance and strength of her message.

Finally, I don't think the material she covers is suited for every twenty-something. It seems as if the text is geared specifically toward women (especially in the subject of fertility), and I think that a book a little bit broader in its content and demographics would be beneficial to students taking this course. I’m glad that I read it and though I did gain some wonderful insight from reading it, I think that another coming-of-age self-help book selection would be better suited for a course such as this one.

Everyone Should Teach Writing (Inside Higher Ed)

Everyone Should Teach Writing (Inside Higher Ed)

ENGL 231 Ideas (climate)

http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/science/earth/climate-change-report.html?emc=edit_th_20140507&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=26918748&_r=0

More on 379

ENGL 379

Social justice element?

Making arguments

Analyze the arguments on an issue

Take a position on an issue

Make that argument in 2-3 different mediums

Make that argument to 2-3 different types of audiences

Ideas for ENGL 379

Topics:

• Plagiarism and Patchwriting

• Genre as Social Action

• Intertextuality

Porter, James E. (1986). Intertextuality and the discourse community. Rhetoric Review, 5, 34–47.

Selzer, Jack. (1993). Intertextuality and the writing process: An overview. In Rachel Spilka (Ed.), Writing in the workplace: New research perspectives (pp. 171–180). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP.

• Identity and Composing

Ketter/Hunter

News Articles Which Reveal Common Conceptions About How Writing and the Teaching of Writing Works

Can Writing Be Assessed? (NY Times, Room For Debate, March 10, 2014)

Facebook Has Transformed My Students' Writing—for the Better (The Atlantic Monthly, 11/18/13)

The Sidney Awards, Part 2 (David Brooks, NY Times, 12/30/2013)

For PDFs of these articles and their comments, go to the folder in my New Research folder called "Visions of Writing."

Writing as Therapy/Healing (Pennebaker)

Writing and Healing from Trauma: An Interview with James Pennebaker