- Aug 2021
-
textbooks.lib.wvu.edu textbooks.lib.wvu.edu
-
This FYC-as-general-academic-literacy-inoculation encourages students to view reading as just another requirement, rather than as an opportunity for discovery and an important form of knowledge making. Take, for example, the research paper, a staple in this model of FYC. All too often, this assignment has no audience other than the teacher, no purpose beyond earning a grade, leaving students with little motivation to locate quality sources and use them thoughtfully.
With limited types of writing and the teacher as the audience, it sucks the life out of the writing and allows for little individuality. Very likely, students learning to tailor their writings for a specific teacher may help in the future for writing for specific people, but not for sharing with a group at all.
I think it is more of an assumption for them to mention that there is little motivation to locate quality sources; it really depends on whether a teacher will look at the resources used. This might just be my bias because I have needed to use quality resources resources for multiple papers on things I'm not interested in or I was just motivated enough to get my A, all because I knew my instructor might or is looking for it.
-
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation resulted in widespread test-ing that became a formidable obstacle to helping students develop deep reading skills. As teachers understandably grew fearful about losing their jobs because of low test scores, they devoted class time to preparing students for the tests rather than developing prac-tices that would have helped students improve as readers and writ-ers.
It is really no wonder the teachers ended up doing this. Even the most passionate teachers would change to prevent losing their job. When working under fear, how can anyone properly do their job? In a student position around that time, it was evident that many teachers didn't like it as much as students did like the situation. Many of my teachers would say every once in a while that the lesson for the day would be studying for the standardized test and it would be boring and useless for our future but necessary for everyone to continue going forward to that future.
-
This often manifests itself in teaching only surface-level reading strategies in K–12 such as skimming and reading for the gist, and in cries of, “They should know this stuff before they get here!” at the university level. This abdication of responsibility has far-reaching effects for students, particularly those from underserved populations, leading them to believe they are poor readers rather than people who have not been taught to read deeply, thus potentially limiting their abilities
Teachers seem to assume all other teachers are doing their job and all schools have the materials they need and therefore a student is at fault. I am, and know, of many students who went to their "not so great" neighborhood elementary school and did well enough to have the opportunity to go to a considerably better middle school than the one in their area, but we were met with problems when assumptions were made of what we should know. If someone doesn't know something, getting angry at them for it won't change the fact they need the gap in knowledge filled. Flexibility is important.
-
Even if we want to be a bit cynical and argue that postsecondary education has become nothing more than a necessary, but burden-some, step to gaining employment, both reading and writing are still just as important.
It seems less cynical and more of a fact. But thankfully postsecondary education generally will help reinforce the reading and writing skills developed prior and add to them as well. Also, anecdotally, I have noticed that many students will learn to make papers and other written work not be cookie-cutter as many were taught to during middle and high school years.
-
Denying students the richness of an educa-tion that considers reading and writing alongside each other means denying them the opportunity to become as proficient as possible in these connected practices and, therefore, experience and prac-tice the interpretive work that is specifically human.
Referring to reading and writing as a practice makes it sound so formal and rigid. Something that was lacking from this reading, that has been further solidified from this conclusion, is the fact that there is little mention of creative writing. There is a heavy focus on professional type writing or what would be considered useful for a job, but part of the fun of reading and writing is the stories and poems compared to essays and textbooks that are not usually as engaging. Not to disregard the importance of the formal practice of reading and writing, but is important to mention the other parts too; they are also a part of students learning.
-
This research seeks to under-stand how students read sources and use them in their writing. With less than 10% of students using summary in their writing (as opposed to paraphrasing, copying, and citing), scholar Rebecca Moore Howard and her colleagues noted that their findings raise questions about students’ abilities to understand what they are reading.
What type of writing are they referring too (format and the instructions for their writing)? I tried to look for what study they were referencing for their less than 10% statistic and couldn't find it. I don't doubt that it is on The Citation Project website, but I'd like to know more on the procedure that led them to come to that conclusion.
At least personally, many of my teachers in the past would tell us to intentionally not add a summary to essays or papers. Many would say that they already know the text and so it would be useless to explain; the essay should speak for itself or the summary should be reserved for an annotated bibliography if instructed to make one.
-