Week 3

Plans for Today:

• Warm up
• Group discussion
• Majority of class time will be spent talking about our research projects.

I read over your CT's this weekend. If you check your Gmail you should see the comments. If your CT wasn't in your folder, I commented on your introduction letter. Make sure you have your document in your folder so I can give feedback even if it's not the finished product.

Overall comments on CT's: Make sure you remember who your audience is and use the text and personal examples to explain the concepts to your audience. Don't forget to use page numbers when quoting so your readers will know where to find it.

Warm up:

• ACRL

Having read the “Introduction and Definition” in the ACRL, what is information literacy? They have a definition in bold on the page but try to put it in your own words using examples.

Group Up, Share, Discuss:

According to the ACRL reading, discuss the following:

• Threshold Concepts
• Information Literacy
• Knowledge Practices
• Dispositions

Lastly, go back to the first ACRL concept we read “Research as Inquiry” and look at the Knowledge Practices and Dispositions. Choose one from each and talk about how they relate to the definitions of knowledge practices and dispositions.

Project Discussion:

In groups, share your first RJ_1. Talk about your ideas for research projects this semester. I’ll be going around the room to answer questions as you talk.

Homework for Wednesday, September 12

• We will be discussing Threshold Concepts 1.6 "Writing is not natural" and 4.0, "All writers have more to learn." Make sure you have started writing your CT_2 which responds to these threshold concepts.
• By now you should have written CT_1, RR_1, and RJ_1 which I assigned last week. See the schedule for reminders as to which writings are assigned each week. Remember, the final versions of drafts are due until every Sunday night the week after they are assigned; however, you do need to get started on them as soon as you can once I assign them and they need to be in your folders so I can see you are working on them.

Start writing Research Journal (RJ_2):

Effective writers are well-informed, credible, and authoritative. They engage in an ongoing process of “inventions,” they (continue to) learn about the issues that concern them, the issues they are addressing through their uses of writing (or multi-modal representations).

You will be engaging in ongoing inquiry, using strategic research to learn as much as you can about your issue, to understand the ongoing conversations about the issue, to ensure that when you are starting or joining the conversation at the local level, you are fully informed.

To ensure that you have evidence of your ongoing inquiry, you will maintain a research journal. Below are the guidelines for this record of your work:

Each research journal from now on will include the following information (copy and paste the information below into a google doc and use it as your template for each journal entry):

• Date and time spent for each of your research sessions
• The research question(s) that are guiding your inquiry for this session
• Research resources that you are using (internet search engines, library databases, interviews, grazing journals or magazines, others’ bibliographies, etc.) In other words, what tools are you using to find information? And why these tools specifically.
• Keywords you use for each search; how you determined them.
• List (with bibliographic information) each result you consulted/read/ or determined as useful
• Notes for each source, recording what you thought was useful/interesting; including quotes, paraphrases, data, etc. that contributes to your learning
• For each research session, a reflective summary of what you did, how it contributed to your learning about your issue, and what you plan to do in your next research session. (Include information about how/why you added research questions or changed them; about what new search terms you will try or did try, and why; about how you might use the information you have found or how it adds to your knowledge about your issue (Anything new? How does it relate to what else you are learning?) Finally, for each of these reflective summaries, explain/explore how the work you did relates to one or more of the 6 Information Literacy Concepts (ACRL) that we have read so far.

I expect to find progress every week. Remember that your goal with this research is to learn as much as possible about your issue (and wherever else your learning leads you). In the final portfolio, you will be trying to provide evidence that you did sustained, regular, comprehensive research to learn about your issue. I hope you recognize that this means you can’t wait until the end.

Class Plans for Today:

• Homework clarification
• Warm Up
• Group discussion on Threshold concepts 1.6 and 4.0

I updated the schedule because a few students pointed out I had a mistake on when a reading response was due. To clarify, when I assign CT’s and RR’s, the final products will be due the following week. For research journals, these should be completed weekly to show progress so if I assign a research journal on Monday, you should be able to have that complete by the Sunday of the same week since it is more of a weekly log rather than something to be revised.

The reason the RJ’s should be done weekly is because your research needs to be making significant progress as you will be writing a research proposal as a part of your midterm portfolio (something we will discuss in-depth next week).

If RR's, CT's, or RJ's are turned in a day or two late, I don't mind; however, I do check your folders periodically so it's best to have your working documents in your folder even if they are not complete for me to see you are working on them. The due dates for our weekly writings are primarily for your benefit so you will not fall behind and wait until the midterm and final to complete your writings. If you do that, it'll only make it harder on yourself to produce effective and clear writing for your midterm and final.

Any questions?

Warm up:

After reading Threshold Concepts 1.6 “Writing is not natural” and 4.0, “All writers have more to learn,” take five minutes and write down something specific that you found interesting from one of the concepts and explain why it is interesting.

Group up, Share, and Discuss:

GROUP A:

Threshold Concept 1.6

• How is writing a technology? Use examples.
• What does it mean to say writing isn’t natural? Have you heard the opposite before? Do you agree?
• Lastly, point me to anything else in the text you found interesting or noteworthy.

GROUP B:

Threshold concept 4.0

• Explain why there is not such thing as “writing in general”.
• The text says writing teachers may wish “all writing abilities could be learned once and for always” (60). Why can’t it be?
• Lastly, point me to anything else in the text you found interesting or noteworthy.

Homework for Friday, September 14

Read:

• ACRL “Authority is constructed and contextual”

Write:

Research to Learn: Reading Response (RR_2)

• Respond to the ACRL, “Authority is constructed and contextual.”
  • Click here for the specifics on the assignment description.
  • How does this relate to threshold concepts 4.0 and 1.6?
  • Use specific examples from the text and personal experience to respond to this reading.

Class Plans for Today:

• Look at CT's from students from previous semesters.
• Discuss peer-review comments and revision techniques.

Examples of CT's:

As we look at these CT's, think about these questions:

• How is the writer following the assignment description?
• Where does the writer define the threshold concept for their audience?
• How are they addressing their audience's needs?
• Where is the writer referring to the text (quotes, paraphrasing)? Where is the writer using personal examples?

Peer-review workshop:

Break up into groups of two and pull up your partner's CT_2 on your computer. Ask the questions that we asked above and write comments using the google docs comment feature.

Homework for Monday, September 17

For the next class make sure you do the readings I assigned this week. Specifically, we will be discussing the ACRL concept "Authority is Constructed and Contextual." It's okay if it's a bit confusing right now, we will discuss it in depth in class but get a start on your RR_2.

Read:

• Naming What We Know 3.0 “Writing Enacts and creates Identities and Ideologies”
• Naming What We Know 3.2 “Writers’ Histories, processes, and Identities Vary”

Write:

Crossing Thresholds (CT_3):

• Respond to the two threshold concepts 3.0 and 3.2
• Check out Crossing Thresholds (CT) assignment page for the specifics on how you should respond to the threshold concepts.

Remember, this weekend you need to complete CT_2, RR_1, and RJ_2. Start CT_3 and RR_2. RJ_3 will be assigned Monday officially, but it will follow the exact same template as the other two if you want to get a head start. The idea is to keep developing your research every week with your RJ's.