Week 11

Plans for Today:

• Announcements/Reminders
• Discuss Naming What We Know 2.4 "All Writing is Multimodal"
• Examine Genre Examples

Announcements

• Make sure you are checking your Islander Emails and Blackboard for alerts. I asked some of you to come meet with me to discuss improvements on your assignments/grade, and only a few of you have shown up. I am doing this to help you. Last semester many students waited until the very last minute to talk to me about improving their grade when they should have come sooner. You can always email me or meet with me.
• This Friday (November 9) is the last day to drop.
• Whether or not you were satisfied with your midterm grades, remember, the final grade will be weighed a lot heavier (70% of your grade) so the work you are producing now can either bring your grade up (if you are improving) or bring your grade down (if you are slacking off). A “B” could turn into a “C” or worse if you stop coming to class, stop participating, stop doing the assignments, etc. Similarly, a “C” can possibly become an “A” if you show immense improvement in all aspects of the class.
• If you are unsure about how you are doing in the class, come talk to me.

Group up, Share, and Discuss:

• What is a mode? Provide some examples, not just from the book.
• What makes something multimodal? Use personal examples.
• What are some examples of multimodal writing that you can think of?
• Look at the following quote and explain what it means using specific and careful examples:
  • “Thus, writing as a knowledge-making activity isn’t limited to understanding writing as a single mode of communication but as a multimodal, performative activity that takes place within any number of genres” (p.43)

*Remember, “knowledge-making activity” simply means “doing something with writing” or that you are able to make something happen, achieve a purpose, through writing*

Genre Examples (keep in mind these genre examples are for your individual genre assignments. Professor Jarvis will show you examples of poster boards for the symposium/group genre. Be working on that with your group mates).

• What do you notice about these genres? (How is one genre different from other genres that you may think are similar? For example, think of rock music. Rock music is a genre, but then you have pop-rock, classic rock, heavy metal, etc.)
• What’s effective?
• What kinds of audiences are they communicating to?
• What is their purpose?
• Can you see how the modes and genres are helping to achieve this purpose?
  • Medium/media could be a PowerPoint that uses modes (visual, audio, etc.). But the genre would be the kind of presentation you are using the PowerPoint for. So if you choose to do a PowerPoint, you would need to print up what you would say during the presentation and create a handout for it to be considered one genre.

Start thinking about what genres you may use! We'll look at more examples Wednesday.

Homework for Wednesday, November 7

• RJ_9.
  • For this research journal use the regular template. Continue to push yourself into your research. Think carefully about the conversation surrounding your topic. What do you see missing from what's being said or done about your topic that you can contribute?

Reminder of what I assigned on Friday of last week:

• CT_10
  • Naming What We Know 2.4 "All Writing is Multimodal" & 4.3 "Learning to Write Effectively Requires Different Kinds of Practice, Time, and Effort"
  • RR_4
    • ACRL, "Information Has Value"
• Again, as you work on these homework assignments, keep in mind the feedback I have given you on your midterm so you may make improvements and adjustments to your writing with your audience and purpose in mind.
• Something that may help:
  • https://www.ndsu.edu/cfwriters/genrestypes_of_documents/

Plans for Today:

• Discussion of Naming What We Know 4.3 "Learning to Write Effectively Requires Different Kinds of Practice, Time, and Effort"
• Genre Discussion/Examples

Group up, Share, and Discuss:

Threshold Concept 4.3

• What are some of the different kinds of practices that the text refers to? What is the significance in distinguishing the differences between these different kinds of writing practices? To answer this question, think about your own practices. What works? What doesn’t work? What kinds of practices have changed now that you are in college? (This doesn’t have to only relate to my class).
• What is troublesome about this threshold concept?
• Look at the following quote and explain what it means using examples:
  • “some people believe that when we learn to write in one genre, we have learned to write in all; but to write in any genre, we need practice in that genre and in the conventions defining that genre” (p.64)

TO HELP YOU ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS, YOU MAY WANT TO LOOK AT 2.0 AND 2.2.

Genre Examples:

• What do you notice about these genres? What’s effective?
• What kinds of audiences are they communicating to?
• What is their purpose?

If time permits, let's discuss possible genres you are thinking of using.

Homework for Friday, November 9

• Work on drafting your symposium genre with your group members! This is important because you need to have a draft ready by Monday next week as we all agreed upon.

Plans for Today:

• Discussion of ACRL "Information has Value"
• Genre Project Discussion/Brainstorm

Group up, Share, and Discuss:

In groups of three, one person takes notes in a google document, the second person will be in charge of finding quotes, and the third person will be in charge of speaking to the rest of the class about what you found. ACRL, “Information has Value”

• Choose three knowledge practices and two dispositions. Explain what they mean and thoroughly discuss how you will (or have already) implement these in your research and the construction of your genres.

Genre Drafting

Use this time in class to start drafting your genre. You can do so in a few different ways:

1. You can research the conventions of your chosen genre. For example, if you want to write an article for the New York Times, look at articles from the New York Times and notice what are the conventions (how do they cite their sources, what kind of tone does this writing use, who is their audience, what is their purpose, do they use images, etc.?).
2. You can continue researching information on your topic to help you figure out who your audience is/your purpose.

I will be walking around the class and will use this time to talk to you individually about any questions you have about the genres you are thinking of using.

Homework for Monday, November 12

• CT_11
  • Naming What We Know, 2.5 "Writing is Performative" & 2.6 "Texts Get Their Meaning From Other Texts"
  • Lisa Bickmore’s “35 GENRE in the WILD: Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical (Eco)systems” (You may implement Bickmore's work into the CT this week).
• Due Nov. 14, First Draft of Symposium Project (work on that with your group members).
  • Make sure you've been saving your draft of the symposium project in your google drive folder so that all the group members can see it. (Professor Jarvis went over this with you).
  • To make things easy, save it in the "_Group Projects" folder in our class google drive folder. Title a folder within this folder the name of all your group members and save your slides there.
  • You will be presenting this on the 14th with your group as a practice before symposium.

Keep in mind that I won't be giving you extra readings over Thanksgiving Break. You will only be working on the major assignments, so put effort into these last readings and writings before the break.