September 7: What did she ask us to post?

After setting up blogs, we worked on understanding how the first three chapters in McAndrew and Reigstad might deepen understanding of what writing centers do.

You started by writing down a set of connections between points from the chapters - and what those points implied about how writing centers work, and what writing centers do. I gave an example about the section on reader response theory:

Sample writing for a post: Reader response theory points out that meanings are NOT entirely in texts - they are created by the reader (with respect to the post => this is the principle - what follows are my reflections on what this principle implies for writing center work ). With respect to what writing centers do, this tells us that the texts students read and write are only a starting place for understanding how to structure coaching sessions. For coaches, this means much of the work will take place in terms of: learning how the writer understands writing assignments and what s/he has read or written and and checking to see if the writer's understanding matches what the coach knows about writing genre's, expectations of academic audiences, and so on. To make this even more complicated - the coach will need to be aware that his/her perceptions will also be shaped by his/her particular reading history and experiences. So overall - this theory implies that good writing center work will required good listening, careful examination of the assumptions we bring to coaching sessions, and on-going communication between the coach, the writer - and the texts they are working with.

After you did some writing - you worked in groups to fill out, expand on, and deepen your thinking about this list.

Writing versus talking. We then spent some time reflecting on how these two different processes - writing and talking - helped generate, organize, deepen, and consolidate ideas. The list we generated is posted at the right under course documents. It seems (unsurprisingly) that talking and writing contribute to the writing process in different ways. Understanding the different strengths of the two processes (and realizing that different writers will relate to these strengths in different ways) is very important for writing coaches - since talk and writing are coaches primary tools for working on writing with their clients.

We didn't really have time to reflect on the lists you created so I have posted them on the right for you to take a look at.

So, what did she ask us to post?
And that brought us to the topic for your first blog post. We revised the prompt from the calendar so that instead of writing about what writing centers do - you were asked to list and write about the connections between the readings and what you are learning about what writing centers do.

Some of the important points that you might respond to include implications for writing centers with respect to:

social constructionism
reader response

talk and writing (we sort of did this one in class)
collaborative learning

feminism

research on peer groups (what have they found - what does it imply about coaching writing?)

research on conferences

research on coaching

studies of literacy coaching

studies of coaching writing

"mistaken" theories for coaching

Write in to your increased understanding of coaching in terms of this writing.

For Thursday:

Blog 1: Use the textbook's first three chapters to identify principles that shape work at writing centers - and write into/ describe/reflect on what you are learning about these principles.

Create a link list of your classmates' blogs.

Read: McAndrew and Reigstad, 21-30.