Friday, November 1, 2013

Tensions I have with SFSU's IRW

I appreciate the SFSU learning objectives for thinking about my own course design, but I diverge a little, especially in areas of contextualizing the work we do.

I want students to use writing processes to learn the strategies of writing, as objective 2 states, but I would take this further. I think there could be emphasis on participation, imagining the student as a writer participating within a context available to adopt or resist as they re-imagine their identities.

Objective 4 also lacks something for me. I want students to have control over their expository writing, but I would emphasize contextual purposes in addition to audience and genre because my project sees students as participants in their reading and writing.

More than supporting a central purpose in their papers, as objective 6 states for evidence and analysis, I want students to use these rhetorical strategies as social tools for taking on conversations relevant to their experience.

Objective 7 does not satisfy me because it is concerned with steps withing the papers, not the processes, which have been covered. I want objective 7 to go further and question our knowledge of knowledge: why do we think the way we do? Why do genre conventions exist and who makes them? This has implications worth exploring, like where "truth" comes from.

No comments:

Post a Comment