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Helping L2 Writers Respond to Writing Assignments A cross the Curriculum - Part 1

Helping L2 Writers Respond to Writing Assignments A cross the Curriculum - Part 1. TESOL, March 31, 2012 Jan Frodesen University of California, Santa Barbara. 1 st Year writing courses & writing across the curriculum (WAC).

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Helping L2 Writers Respond to Writing Assignments A cross the Curriculum - Part 1

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  1. Helping L2 Writers Respond to Writing Assignments Across the Curriculum - Part 1 TESOL, March 31, 2012 Jan Frodesen University of California, Santa Barbara

  2. 1st Year writing courses & writing across the curriculum (WAC) • Expectation: FYW should prepare students for writing across the curriculum • Reality (Leki, 2007) • Writing assignments across the disciplines are extremely varied

  3. FYW courses: Realities, cont. • Writing assignments in FYW (including ESL) differ widely from kinds of writing assigned across disciplines • Literacy transfer issues • FYW courses cannot teach all genres for WAC

  4. FYW courses: Realities, cont. • What FYW instructors can do: • Explore what students are asked to write in general education courses • Help them develop ways to understand assignments and ask for appropriate help

  5. Notes from a WAC tutorial workshop coordinator (UCSB) • Writing assignments for lower div. courses • Analysis tasks requested equally complex from 1st yr courses through upper-division • Many prompts are detailed in a way that is not very helpful (lots of points/little guidance) • Heavy emphasis placed on mechanics • TAs often asked to “bridge the gap” b/w students’ abilities and “overblown” prompts

  6. Focus of this presentation • Workshop materials for composition colleagues to help L2 writers respond to extended writing assignments beyond the ESL/writing classroom.

  7. Workshop Background • Created for ESL/Basic Writing consortium, Santa Monica College, CA • Writing assignments • Collected from a range of disciplines, two 4-yr. universities • Primarily for general education courses • Disciplines included art history, biology, economics, English, history, religious studies, sociology

  8. Workshop Structure • Imagine you and colleagues have identified 3main goals concerned with preparing students for writing assignments across the curriculum. • You will be working in small groups to address these goals

  9. Workshop Goals and Tasks Goal 1: Help students understand what the purposes and expectations of specific writing assignments are.

  10. Workshop goals and tasks Task for Goal 1: Analyze a writing assignment. Your group will be given awriting prompt to “deconstruct” and discuss. You’ll have a set of questions to guide you.

  11. Workshop Goals and Tasks Goal 2: Help students consider and articulate questions they might ask instructors (TAs) to clarify objectives & explanations.

  12. Workshop Goals and Tasks Task for Goal 2: Make a list of possible questions that might arise for students regarding the prompt you have analyzed. Refer to guidelines.

  13. Workshop Goals and Tasks Goal 3: Consider classroom tasks you could design to help students develop rhetorical and language skills for responding successfully to writing across the curriculum.

  14. Workshop Goals and Tasks Task for Goal 3: I In reference to the prompt you have examined, brainstorm a list of possible reading/writing or other activities for your writing class.

  15. Workshop Wrap-up At workshop end, each group will share with participants some of their analysis findings and ideas for helping student writers.

  16. Sample Workshop Group Response to Assignment • Course: Religious Studies 1 (UCSB) Book Paper Assignment Coelho’s The Alchemist, Hesse’s Siddhartha, Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, McCarthy’s The Road Analyze a contemporary novel based on the concepts and themes introduced in the course.

  17. Book paper assignment, cont. 1) A short biography of the author and discussion of the book’s place in relation to his other works. Is it one among several he has written? Does it stand out from his other writings in some way? (1 page) 2) Briefly what was the book about? Who were the main protagonists? (1/2 to 1 page)

  18. Book paper assignment, cont. 3) Does the book deal with specific religions or members of such religions? If so, what/who are they and how does it represent them? Positively? Negatively? Does it do so in terms of myth? Ritual? Salvation? Politics? Experience? If it does not mention specific religions, does it represent concepts, themes, or issues that can be called religious? Explain and provide examples. (2-3 pages)

  19. Book paper assignment, cont. 4) How does the book illustrate the theme of religious journey as developed in our class? (E.g., What landscapes does it take place in? What journey(s) do the main protagonists take? Do women also participate in the journey? If so, how significant are they? Do the protagonists encounter or invoke supramundane beings?  

  20. Book paper assignment, cont. ( 4 cont.) Do they have to overcome obstacles or travel to sacred places on their journeys? What transformations do the protagonists experience, and what causes these transformations to occur? How is the subject of death portrayed, and how is it related to the protagonist’s journey? (2-3 pages)

  21. Book paper assignment, cont. 5) Provide a conclusion that clearly and succinctly relates back to your original thesis statement. Include your critical assessment of the book, good and bad. (1/2-1 page)

  22. Sample Workshop Group Comments Response to Task 1: • Overall impression of the assignment • Dense, complex, the parts seem disjointed • Who is the intended audience? Professors and peers? • Unclear whether culminating assignment of an entire quarter’s work • Questions raised as to how realistic some of the page limitations are

  23. Response to Task 1 cont. (1) A short biography of the author and discussion of the book’s place in relation to his other works. • Not directly related to the prompt • How would S’s know this info? • Additional sources not listed.

  24. Response to Task, 1 cont. (2) Briefly what was the book about? Who were the main protagonists? • Instructor requesting a summary here, but not explicitly directed. • Discuss meaning of protagonists?

  25. Response to Task 1, Cont. (3) Does the book deal with specific religions or members of such religions? (Followed by numerous questions) Explain/provide examples. • This section related to course content, seems like a culminating end-of-semester assignment • Are page limits realistic?

  26. Response to Task1, cont. 4) How does the book illustrate the theme of religious journey as developed in our class? (followed by 8 questions) • Is this the best order for all of these different sections of the paper?

  27. Response to Task 1, cont. 5) Provide a conclusion that clearly and succinctly relates back to your original thesis statement. Include your critical assessment, good and bad. (1/2-1 page) • How do students come up with a thesis? • What is the focus of the “critical assessment”?

  28. Task 2: Questions for Students to Raise • There are a number of required parts. How do I tie these together?Should each section have a separate sub-heading? • How should I deal with all the questions in planning my paper? • Can I focus on one theme, e.g. a religious journey?

  29. Questions for Task 2 • What constitutes a good thesis? • May I rely on a biographical summary from the internet for Part 1? May I use Wikipedia? • How do I cite? • What will grading criteria be?

  30. Task 3:Possible Classwork Activities • Model how to parse, interpret and question a complex writing prompt • Analyze/summarize step by step (Map parts 1-5 of this prompt to Intro-body-conclusion) • Work with students on how to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary

  31. Possible Classwork Activities • Resources for citation guidance • Provide and explain a rubric by which a paper could be assessed.

  32. Summary: Benefits of Workshop Analysis and Discussion • Witness the great variation in assignment types that undergraduates encounter • Work with one assignment in detail + hear analysis/suggestions for others • Gain awareness of what creates problems for students in purpose, audience, structure, coherence, etc.

  33. Summary: Benefits of Workshop Analysis and Discussion • Inform future prompt writing for one’s own classes • Reconsider writing course curricula: What types of writing assignments and strategies will best help students respond to writing assignments across the curriculum?

  34. References • Colorado State University WAC Clearinghouse, Teaching Guide: Designing Writing Assignments. http://writing.colo.state.edu/guides/teaching/wassign. Retrieved April, 2011 • Leki, I. (2007). Undergraduates in a second language: Challenges and complexities of academic literacy development. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum

  35. Acknowledgments • Lia Khami-Stein, CSULA, co-presenter and workshop creator • Emily Lodmer, SMC and Linda Jensen, UCLA for group response notes • UCSB CLAS tutorial ESL coordinators Jeff Harlig and Jeff Harlig for sample writing assignments and suggestions for prompt analysis

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