Bring Your Own Disruption: Rhizomatic Learning in the Composition Class
December 30, 2012 | Filed in: Literacies
by Tanya Sasser
Too often, rather than inviting First-Year Composition (FYC) students into the disruptive experience of being a writer, we try to shield them inside the safety of the walled garden of neatly ordered paths that is the traditional, instructor-driven composition classroom. Even while some of us have refocused on the process, rather than products, of writing, we continue to hamstring students with scaffolded compositional tasks and writing “prompts,” assuming that by allowing students to choose between various (artificially-created, instructor-mapped) paths, we are endowing them with an autonomy so empowering that they will arrive at the end of their journey through our garden as self-identified writers.
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Too often, rather than inviting First-Year Composition (FYC) students into the disruptive experience of being a writer, we try to shield them inside the safety of the walled garden of neatly ordered paths that is the traditional, instructor-driven composition classroom. Even while some of us have refocused on the process, rather than products, of writing, we continue to hamstring students with scaffolded compositional tasks and writing “prompts,” assuming that by allowing students to choose between various (artificially-created, instructor-mapped) paths, we are endowing them with an autonomy so empowering that they will arrive at the end of their journey through our garden as self-identified writers.
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Data Mining in the Trenches: Using Storify to Teach Research
July 30, 2012 | Filed in: Tools
by Tanya Sasser
It's time to confront our bias against open sources and redefine how our students research in digital environments. We should both allow them to use the research sites that are most handy, i.e., those openly available on the internet, and teach them how to effectively mine, evaluate, synthesize, and use the information contained within those sites. Good research is an art form and good researchers use a variety of techniques. The art of research is knowing how and when to use the various tools and techniques in concert. While students rarely approach research as an art, never have the tools of research been more readily available to them. The trick is to teach them how to use those tools with finesse.
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It's time to confront our bias against open sources and redefine how our students research in digital environments. We should both allow them to use the research sites that are most handy, i.e., those openly available on the internet, and teach them how to effectively mine, evaluate, synthesize, and use the information contained within those sites. Good research is an art form and good researchers use a variety of techniques. The art of research is knowing how and when to use the various tools and techniques in concert. While students rarely approach research as an art, never have the tools of research been more readily available to them. The trick is to teach them how to use those tools with finesse.
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