Teaching Writing in College

21 (Part I). Want to Help Your Students with Citations? Follow the Penny Principle

Earlier this week, I came across a discussion on Facebook that questioned assumptions about citing sources--especially in an academic way. Importantly, a lot of students who take our classes might not cite sources in an academic setting once they leave college, so why all the (sometimes intense) emphasis on academic formats like MLA or APA? This episode introduces a skill I call "The Penny Principle"--the idea for which I borrowed from Nickerson and Adams' 1979 study in the journal Cognitive Science titled "Long-term Memory for a Common Object." By asking participants in various ways to recall features of a penny, Nickerson and Adams found that the human brain only remembers characteristics of everyday objects that it needs to use the object successfully. Several years ago when I first read the study, I though it could apply to writing source citations. I also use The Penny Principle with students as they practice real-world genres of writing, which don't always use formal source citations. This episode is divided into two parts: Part I provides background about my thinking and then share the lesson plan I usually use to introduce students to the "Penny Principle." Part II explores a collection of activities that I use throughout the year--some longer, some shorter--to provide students with opportunities for varied practice. The Teaching Writing in College podcast is available on Google or Apple Podcasts: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/teaching-writing-in-college/id1667922309 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/teaching-writing-in-college/id1667922309] Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/u/1/search/teaching%20writing%20in%20college [https://podcasts.google.com/u/1/search/teaching%20writing%20in%20college] Teaching Writing in College is also available for viewing on on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUWbbrcygqkZvxqdPCqhuzu0yyx5trJUw [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUWbbrcygqkZvxqdPCqhuzu0yyx5trJUw]

20. Metacognition is a Learned Skill

For a while now, I've thought of metacognition as something that can and should be taught as a skill. (I was reminded of this by a podcast episode from The Happiness Lab.) In this episode, I share a reflective exercise based on some of the 8 subcomponents of metacognition that were developed by Gwen Gorzelsky, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Joe Paszek, Ed Jones, and Carol Hayes in Chris Anson and Jessie Moore's edited collection titled _Critical Transitions_ and published by the WAC Clearinghouse. In short, naming skills, defining them, finding examples of them in their own writing, and writing narratives about their experiences with those skills can help students gather evidence and examples they can use to think about their own writing and their identity as a writer. They can be applied to (and probably will reflect) various subcomponents of metacognition to enrich students' (and our) understanding of writing and what it means to be a writer. Resources: The WAC Clearinghouse's page for Anson and Moore's _Critical Transitions_: https://wac.colostate.edu/books/perspectives/ansonmoore/ [https://wac.colostate.edu/books/perspectives/ansonmoore/] The link to the chapter on Metacognition by Gorzelsky, Driscoll, Paszek, Jones, and Hayes: https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/books/ansonmoore/chapter8.pdf [https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/books/ansonmoore/chapter8.pdf] The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos: Simple Ways to Feel Great Every Day -- with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee: https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/simple-ways-to-feel-great-every-day-with-dr-rangan-chatterjee [https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/simple-ways-to-feel-great-every-day-with-dr-rangan-chatterjee]

19. A 30-minute Activity about Student Writing in their Other Classes

In this episode, I depart briefly from my series on ROCSS (to which I will return in the next episode) to share a fun experience I had with students today. We used David Perkins and Gavriel Salomon's "detect / elect / connect" framework to find opportunities to use skills from our writing class to assignments in their other classes. Writing courses, really, should be thought of as support for other contexts--they're not an end in themselves. What better way to use the material we have learned about writing than as a means to help students be successful with work they are doing in their other classes? This episode talks through an activity I did with students around "detect / elect / connect" and includes some new insights I gained about their work elsewhere. I'm finding it helpful, as a writing instructor, to know more about what students are actually doing in their classes.

18. Writing Is Made of Genres, and Genres Are Made of ROCSS (Part IV)

In the fourth episode of this multi-part series, I provide a classroom exercise I recently used to demonstrate how additional knowledge about writing can support students' use of ROCSS. In particular, I introduced students to causal arguments (from stasis theory) as a way to generate content for their current projects. Stasis theory can be particularly helpful for students because it is, to my mind, first and foremost a tool for invention. Elements of stasis theory can be found across a wide range of genres--everyday conversations with friends, movie reviews, presidential debates, academic writing, and more. In the podcast, I discuss how I helped students see causal arguments at work in a grant proposal and a press release before offering them an opportunity to use it for invention in their own upcoming projects.

17. Writing is Made of Genres, and Genres are Made of ROCSS (Part III)

In the third episode in this series, I share a paragraph from Carolyn Miller's influential article titled "Genre as Social Action." It's a passage that has stuck with me for some time and informs my use of various genres--long and short, large and small--in my writing classes. I also go through various genre samples that I have collected over the years and can draw from as I match them up to student needs and interests. Toward the end, I compose a brief 5 or 10 minute class activity to help students practice a ROCSS analysis--to give them a chance to practice using ROCSS, which will help them when they encounter new genres later. Teaching Writing in College is also available for viewing on on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUWbbrcygqkZvxqdPCqhuzu0yyx5trJUw [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUWbbrcygqkZvxqdPCqhuzu0yyx5trJUw]