Week 9

Out today:

Hi class, since I'm feeling under the weather we are not meeting face-to-face today. Instead, I want you to do an online assignment for me that won't actually be much else besides working on your homework:

• Make sure you have read Naming What We Know 1.5, "Writing Mediates Activity" & 2.2 "Genres are Enacted by Writers and Readers". Use the time we would have spent in class starting CT_8 if you have not already. I want you to have a full grasp of these threshold concepts when we meet for class on Wednesday.
• Also, start working on RJ_7. I want you to follow the rabbit hole template again. See template below.

Other than that, I will continue to grade your midterm portfolios as I can. Just because I won't be on campus don't feel like you can't email me if you have any questions. Please do! See you Wednesday.

TEMPLATE FOR RESEARCH JOURNAL/RABBIT HOLE ASSIGNMENT:

Each research journal 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 (SOURCES, A, B, C, and so on depending on how many you do).
• Notes for each source, recording what you thought was useful/interesting; including quotes, paraphrases, data, etc. that contributes to your learning/how the sources relate to each other considering the above assignment description.
• 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 Information Literacy Concepts (ACRL) that we have read so far.

Plans for Today:

• Reminders
• Discussion of threshold concepts 1.5, "Writing Mediates Activity"
• Research Project Discussion

Announcements/Reminders:

As I have been grading I've noticed a few things across the board that everyone should be improving on for their writing assignments:

• Make sure you are using the Research Journal template to complete your Research Journals. Right now we are using the Rabbit hole template specifically, but make sure you are doing so from here on out if you haven't been.
• For your CT's and Reading Responses, use personal examples to explain quotes/paraphrases from the text. I've noticed some people have very short CT's and, though the length itself is not as important, the content is. Work through these concepts and really dig deep. The people who are doing this well are really working through the concepts and putting in effort to understand where they are confused.
• Remember your audience when writing CT's.

Group up, Share, and Discuss:

• How does writing mediate activity? Provide specific examples.
• What do the following quotes mean?
  • “Writing can mediate the internal activity of thought and emotion as well as external behavior” (p.27).
  • "The concept that writing mediates human activity is troublesome because it goes against the usual concepts of writing as "just" transcribing ("writing down" or "writing up") thought or speech" (p. 27).

Keeping in mind that writing mediates activity, let's discuss how your research projects will mediate activity.

Homework for Friday, October 26

• Keep working on your Research Journal for this week (RJ_7) and CT_8.
• Be prepared to discuss Threshold concept 2.2 "Genres are Enacted by Writers and Readers" on Friday.
• Also, you may want to check out the semester project assignment description. This would be good to glance at to be prepared for where we are headed.

Plans for Today:

• Discussion of 2.2, "Genres are Enacted by Writers and Readers."
• Get into groups for symposium project

Reminders:

• Check your Gmail accounts to make sure you see when I comment on your documents.

Warm Up:

• What does the following mean? Break it down.
  • “The view of genre has several interesting implications most newcomers to the idea find challenging and fascinating. One is that no single text is a genre; it can only be an instance of that genre as it enters into contexts (activity systems) where it might be taken up as such an instance. Readers and users of texts have as much to do with a text becoming an instance of a genre as writers do” (p.40)
  • "This view holds that genres are habitual responses to recurring socially bounded situations" (39).

Discussion

Group up for symposium project

• When we are working on group work for the symposium, it is especially important (for your sake) to get as much done in class as you can. This will lessen the need to get together outside of class as much.
• Simply put, take the time I give you in class for project activities and use it to your advantage.
• All members must contribute.

Homework for Monday, October 29

Keep an eye out for your grades this weekend.

Read and Write:

• CT_9
  • Naming What We Know, 1.2 "Writing Addresses, Invokes, and/or Creates Audiences & 2.1 "Writing Represents The World, Events, Ideas, and Feelings"

Read:

• The Basic Elements of the Communication Process (you don't need to write on this but we will discuss it in class).