Errant Practices

The book theorizes classroom writing assessment as an ecology, a complex system, that is “more than” its interconnected elements. This theory explains how and why antiracist work in the writing classroom is vital to all literacy learning by incorporating ideas about the white racial habitus that informs all dominant discourses in the academy and other markets. Furthermore, the theory helps teachers understand how important and central writing assessment is to student learning, and the unintended racism that often occurs because teachers do not have explicit antiracist agendas in their assessments. It’s main chapters offer an example of how to apply the theory using the author’s classroom and a heuristic for developing and critiquing writing assessment ecologies that is based on seven elements of any writing assessment ecology: power, parts, purposes, people, processes, products, and places.

Bad Ideas About Writing, 2017

Teaching the research paper has been considered a “present controversy” for over fifty years (Saalbach, 1963). Some scholars believe that it prepares students for “generalized academic writing” (Reiff and Bawarshi, 2011; Sutton, 1997; Schwegeler and Shamoon, 1982). However, others have referred to the research paper as a “fossilized,” “pseudo-academic,” “mutt genre” (Nowacek, 2011; Wardle, 2007; Carroll, 1999; Larsen, 1982). This chapter argues that radical openness and information overload--two major features of new media composing environments--compromise the relevance of the traditional research paper. First, the research paper has been praised and blamed for its (in)ability to help students learn the importance of writing from sources (Brent 2013, Rooney 2000). However, the parameters of most research assignments are incapable of matching the scale of data available at any given time. For instance, typical constraints like “use 5-7 sources” for a first-year college writing course seems ridiculous when it takes seconds to retrieve thousands, if not millions, of possible sources. Next, open-access publishing and collaborative authorship have transformed the way that research is conducted and recognized across disciplines. Although teaching students how to crowdsource research makes the most sense in a data deluge, the research paper privileges single authorship. Moreover, the problems of authorship and source attribution implicate the research paper in certain kinds of fraud. For instance, plagiarism and term paper mills are a “built-in” problem of research papers (Howell, 1977). In sum, this chapter focuses on what the term "research" means in a context of too much information. It concludes by offering a brief discussion of literature relevant to this topic.

This book addresses the questions and decisions that administrators and instructors most need to consider when developing online writing programs and courses. The editors hope that the guidance provided in this collection will encourage readers to join a conversation about designing OWI practices, contributing to the scholarship about OWI, and reshaping OWI theory.

2007

2000

Students are highly skilled at finding the most efficient way to attain school-imposed goals, such as passing a test, completing an assignment, or getting the correct answer to a question. The problem is, the most efficient way often allows the student to circumvent thought and activity that could lead to learning. We want students not just to strive toward task completion goals, but to approach tasks in ways that may be less efficient, but more conducive to learning. Furthermore, we want students not to simply tolerate these inefficiencies, but to embrace them. Games require what Bernard Suits has called a "lusory attitude" -game players intentionally and willingly accept rules that compel them to use less efficient means to achieving an end. We suggest that without a lusory attitude toward school, students may become efficient students, but not good learners. We do not propose turning all schoolwork into games; rather, we argue that school activities can be designed in ways that promote a lusory attitude among students. This paper discusses this idea in the context of the Place Out Of Time project, a web-mediated character-playing simulation that engages students with social, historical, and cultural issues over a period of two months. Through examples, narratives, and reflections by participating teachers and students, we explore the experiences of middle school students and teachers who participated in the project. We pay particular attention to instances where students seem to have taken a lusory attitude toward their work, and we discuss those instances particularly in terms of engagement with content and the thoughtful employment of creative imagination.