Worth the Read: Applied Andragogy

A powerful piece at NPR makes some salient points about education, in the form of a Literacy Narrative. It tells the story of a "terrible" man who may have been an excellent English teacher - and highlights the difference between politics and teaching theory - and offers some warning about the direction education currently takes. The author Alva Noe says:

however depraved his behavior may have been in other respects, at least in my eyes, his practice as a teacher was grounded on respect. He didn’t tell us what to think. He didn’t manipulate us. He exemplified a phenomenon — a certain kind of caring about literature, and language, and argument — and he trusted us to form our own judgments about that phenomenon.

You’d have to be a fool to send your kids to school to learn what the teacher thinks or believes. So said Augustine, who, like Plato, believed that you can’t teach knowledge by telling. What a good teacher can do is afford his or her pupils an opportunity to learn something, not by telling, but by enabling something to be seen, experienced, learned.......Politicians — at least the politicians in this American culture we live in — use words not to communicate, or to argue, or persuade. They pretend to do this. But they don’t. Politicians, like sales people, are interested in outcomes. They want to influence you and they are interested in your beliefs and attitudes only in so far as these are potentially levers they can manipulate

Response to Comp 2 literacy reflection.

This term's Literacy Reflections impress me. We have some bright and thoughtful classmates. I'd like to note that for the first time in my almost-2-decade career in higher ed. about 90% of the class got the MLA heading right! What happened? I've never seen more that 30% get the heading even close on the first paper. I 'm verklempt.

Then, as is too often the wont of composition instructors, I get distracted by less than optimal usage and rhetoric. Too often it looks like students merely type rather than compose their papers. Most often, waiting until the last minute and rushing through a paper, then neglecting to proofread causes this. This may be the root cause of the following:

• over-use of passive verbs: while it didn't affect the grade on this paper, excessive use of passive voice will be considered in all subsequent papers. Passive voice is the "to be" verbs: is, are, was, were, be, being, been, am.
  
• passive language occasionally betrays a lack of responsibility or involvement with the educational process in expressions such as, "I received _(good/bad)_ grades in high school." Didn't you earn them? If they were unfair didn't someone give them to you? Also seen repeatedly, "the classes I was enrolled in." Did the student have a choice? Was there parental or institutional pressures that aren't being directly communicated? Passive verbs hide agency - the "who was responsible for what"ness of good writing.
  
• use of semicolons (;)Technically it acts like a period - which means it should be followed by an independent clause. Too often fragments (dependent clauses_) follow. If that's the case use a colon (:) or comma. Really a trivial issue - but I'm glad to see people using semi-colons and I want to see them used correctly, so as not to diminish their effect.
  
• 5 paragraph essay - legit for this assignment but overused. Be willing to try new and more sophisticated forms of organization.
• Conclusions not summaries. Summaries come across too often as redundant.I know someone somewhere once said, "Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em. Tell 'em. Tell 'em what you've told them" but that was an oversimplification and/or questionable advice. I read quite well and remember what I've read. I expect more nuanced and sophisticated rhetoric (congrats to AH for being the first to use the word in class).

Several writers appear to have gone down the list of possible ideas to respond to found in the assignment prompt, and then addressed them one at a time in that order with little or no attention to transitions or organization, rather than adjusting the suggestions to the individual student's experience and crafting a coherent approach to organization. (Wow that was a long sentence).

These issues commonly, if not always, appear early in a semester. Let me reiterate that the content and reflection was exceptionally good.

Reponse to Literacy Reflection: Comp 2

This term's Literacy Reflections impress me. We have some bright and thoughtful classmates. I'd like to note that for the first time in my almost-2-decade career in higher ed. about 90% of the class got the MLA heading right! What happened? I've never seen more that 30% get the heading even close on the first paper. I 'm verklempt.

Then, as is too often the wont of composition instructors, I get distracted by less than optimal usage and rhetoric. Too often it looks like students merely type rather than compose their papers. Most often, waiting until the last minute and rushing through a paper, then neglecting to proofread causes this. This may be the root cause of the following:

• over-use of passive verbs: while it didn't affect the grade on this paper, excessive use of passive voice will be considered in all subsequent papers. Passive voice is the "to be" verbs: is, are, was, were, be, being, been, am.
  
• passive language occasionally betrays a lack of responsibility or involvement with the educational process in expressions such as, "I received _(good/bad)_ grades in high school." Didn't you earn them? If they were unfair didn't someone give them to you? Also seen repeatedly, "the classes I was enrolled in." Did the student have a choice? Was there parental or institutional pressures that aren't being directly communicated? Passive verbs hide agency - the "who was responsible for what"ness of good writing.
  
• use of semicolons (;)Technically it acts like a period - which means it should be followed by an independent clause. Too often fragments (dependent clauses_) follow. If that's the case use a colon (:) or comma. Really a trivial issue - but I'm glad to see people using semi-colons and I want to see them used correctly, so as not to diminish their effect.
  
• 5 paragraph essay - legit for this assignment but overused. Be willing to try new and more sophisticated forms of organization.
• Conclusions not summaries. Summaries come across too often as redundant.I know someone somewhere once said, "Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em. Tell 'em. Tell 'em what you've told them" but that was an oversimplification and/or questionable advice. I read quite well and remember what I've read. I expect more nuanced and sophisticated rhetoric (congrats to AH for being the first to use the word in class).

Several writers appear to have gone down the list of possible ideas to respond to found in the assignment prompt, and then addressed them one at a time in that order with little or no attention to transitions or organization, rather than adjusting the suggestions to the individual student's experience and crafting a coherent approach to organization. (Wow that was a long sentence).

These issues commonly, if not always, appear early in a semester. Let me reiterate that the content and reflection was exceptionally good.