Article Review 3

Pope-Ruark, Rebecca. “Know Thy Audience: Helping Students Engage a Threshold Concept

            Using Audience-Based Pedagogy.” International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching

            and Learning 5.1 (2011): 1-17. Education Research Complete. Web. 20 Sept. 2016.

            Pope-Ruark explicitly sets forth her argument at the outset: “Audience . . . is a crucial threshold concept not only in Rhetoric and Composition, but in any discipline that values communication skills.” She supports this argument first by briefly examining audience analysis as taught by Aristotle, Cicero, and St. Augustine (1). Pope-Ruark then extends her argument to include the idea that students typically only encounter, and thus learn to adapt to, but one audience: the instructor. Even though expectations and assignments vary from one instructor to another, Pope-Ruark asserts, “Our students are experts when it comes to us . . . because they’ve spent their entire educational careers learning how to read us . . . and how to get what they want from us, usually specific grades” (1).

            In support of her argument and in an attempt to move her students toward a genuine understanding of audience, Pope-Ruark designed a semester-long, client-based project which called upon her upper level professional writing and rhetoric students to create a series of informative videos describing services provided by their clients: the librarians of Elon University’s Belk Library. In one example of their initial, liminal state regarding audience, students took advantage of only one of multiple opportunities to consult with their clients, and that one consultation was right at the beginning of the project (6). Students assumed that as consumers of library services, they were the experts, the real audience per se, and there was no need for them to further consult the librarians (7).

            These assumptions led the students to misstep so significantly that Pope-Ruark came to call the day on which they presented their work to the librarians “Reconciliation Day” (10). While the librarians responded with surprise, confusion, and disappointment at the students’ products, the students responded with surprise, frustration, and upset at the librarians’ feedback (8-12). After processing their “Reconciliation Day” emotions via journaling and  discussions with Pope-Ruark, students were able to begin crossing the threshold to a meaningful understanding of audience: “They consciously attempted to improve their knowledge by initiating more give-and-take client and student audience interactions during the final phase of the video project” (12).

            This article deepened my understanding of threshold concepts overall via Pope-Ruark’s  detailed exploration of audience. Pope-Ruark’s careful description of the project through which she guided her students not only helped me comprehend threshold concepts, but also gave me valuable ideas for reworking the authentic audience assignments I have tried with my own students. Additionally, I appreciated that Pope-Ruark spelled out the learning goals for her course (5); this allowed me to see how threshold concepts and learning outcomes differ from one another yet function together. For these reasons, I would recommend this article to my peers and scholars in the field.

             

Article Review 2

Toth, Christie. "Beyond Assimilation: Tribal Colleges, Basic Writing, And The Exigencies Of            
            Settler Colonialism." Journal Of Basic Writing 32.1 (2013): 4-36. ERIC. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.

            Toth describes a pedagogical and personal journey, unique and rich with discovery, in this article. Her argument, implied rather than explicit, is that the role of first year composition as taught at a tribal college is distinct and deserving of its own voice in the discourse community of rhetoric. While success in first year composition is intrinsic to overall collegiate success for many students, regardless of their institution of choice, Toth clearly illustrates that students at tribal colleges bear a unique cultural, political, and social burden.

            Toth here chronicles her 2012 experience teaching basic composition (English 100B) at Diné College, the first and largest tribally controlled college in North America. Prior to her arrival at the college, Toth investigated the research on pedagogy and the Native American student but found that research to be scant and, in her opinion, unsettling (6). She briefly reviews and highlights articles that emphasize the “otherness” of the Native American learner, an emphasis Toth views not only as unhelpful in creating a successful pedagogy but also diminishing in respect to the diversity of Native Americans (6).

            To construct a meaningful pedagogy for her English 100B students, Toth looked to the Diné College mission statement, as printed in the 2011-2012 Catalog which pledges to:

            [A]dvance quality student learning in three areas:

·         In study of Diné language, history and culture

·         In preparation for further studies and employment in a multi-

cultural and technological world

·         In fostering social responsibility, community service and scholarly

research that contribute to the social, economic and cultural well-

being of the Navajo Nation. (qtd. in Toth 12)

            Toth thus realized that students at Diné were not just engaged in building writing skills but also in building their nation. She discovered a mistrust of the written word present in Native American cultures, a mistrust cultivated by many drafted and dishonored promises by United States government. This knowledge gathered, Toth formed her English 100B curriculum around the concept of U.S. settler colonialism, an approach that resonated with her students. Toth helped her students see how the written word had been used to take power away from Native American peoples but could be used also to take power back. Throughout the semester, Toth saw her students’ motivation to improve their language skills increase and also saw them acquire a new respect for their own translingual/multilingual status.

            I would recommend Toth’s article, which she describes as “a narrative of pedagogical reasoning,” to my peers and scholars in the field. The studied way in which Toth shaped her pedagogy to her students’ specific needs, backgrounds, and responsibilities is a solid model worthy of examination. Her approach is not just a lesson in how to help Native American students in the composition classroom but can also be viewed as a guide to creating a “locally responsive pedagogy” (6), a pedagogy valuable in the mosaic of diversity that is the college composition classroom.

           

           

               

Article Review 1

Cleary, Michelle N. “How Antonio Graduated On Out of Here: Improving the Success of Adult

            Students with an Individualized Writing Course.” Journal of Basic Writing 30.1 (2011):

            (34-64). Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 September 2016.

            Cleary’s central argument in “How Antonio Graduated On Out of Here: Improving the Success of Adult Students with an Individualized Writing Course” is that a Writing Workshop approach, as it has been implemented at DePaul University, improves the overall collegiate success of both adult learners and students identified as non-traditional or at-risk for reasons other than age.

            Cleary cements the need to better serve this population, citing sources such as the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). According to the NCES almost two-thirds of undergraduates identify as non-traditional, and the majority of these will drop out within three years of first undertaking the pursuit of a bachelor’s degree (35). Cleary hones her argument by providing evidence that non-traditional students often cite failure or success on college writing assignments as directly related to their respective decisions to persist in or give up on attaining a bachelor’s degree (36).

            Cleary goes on to distinguish the Writing Workshop for which she advocates from other approaches, such as remedial English courses. Cleary’s Writing Workshop is open not only to first-year students identified by assessment as having low verbal skills, but also to any student struggling with collegiate writing.

            The Writing Workshop Cleary describes is unique to anything that I have experienced, both as a student at a large, public university and a teacher at a small, private college. Among the salient features: a maximum class size of ten and instruction directly informed by individual student needs. There are four criteria guiding instruction in all sections of The Writing Workshop, namely that each student: “1. Can assess his or her own writing and address areas of weakness…. 2. Uses revision to produce significantly improved final drafts…. 3. Demonstrates improvement in writing as documented in a writing portfolio…. 4. Presents a plan for continuous, ongoing improvement of writing…” (44-46).

            Cleary addresses the financial and staffing challenges inherent in so unique a course, but she offers powerful evidence of the course’s positive results. Significant in the “big picture” of higher education are the cost savings Cleary reports; DePaul incurs a lower cost supporting students via The Writing Workshop than if these students had dropped out (48). Additionally, Cleary highlights participating students’ success: “Although Writing Workshop students are some of the weaker writers in a writing-intensive program, they are retained to the next quarter and to the following year at higher rates that the SNL [The School for New Learning] and national averages” (47).

            I would recommend this article both to peers and scholars in the field. The article is readable, and its central argument is well-supported with evidence from credible sources. Cleary describes The Writing Workshop with such detail that I can envision how such a program might work at my institution, McPherson College (MC). Though MC has successfully recruited many first-generation and non-traditional students, the college has experienced limited success supporting these students via writing center and non-credit workshop approaches. Cleary’s article not only piques my interests but gives me hope that better options exist.