Writing Instruction in the HMXP Classroom

1. Writing Instruction in the HMXP Classroom HMXP Faculty Training October 25, 2013

2. Writing Instruction in the Touchstone Core • Writing 101, HMXP, and CRTW • should provide coherent and incremental instruction in critical reading, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of texts and ideas. • should provide students with opportunities to reflect, analyze, and draw conclusions about a variety of significant topics and texts. • should require students to construct well-supported, persuasive, logical arguments.

3. CRTW Faculty Survey • When surveyed recently, CRTW faculty indicated that HMXP students need more instruction in • constructing logical, sophisticated arguments in response to texts. • understanding the critical thesis and concrete evidence. • understanding how to analyze texts within the context of an argument. • creating an argument and integrating sources. • expressing “deep” ideas in readable, persuasive prose.

4. HMXP Writing Assignments • The written assignments in HMXP should • provide opportunities for students to enter into the “exchange of ideas” with other thinkers about significant topics. • encourage students to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate multiple sophisticated, complex arguments and texts. • require students to create their own argument, or stance, in response to these ideas and within the context of their own lives. • be substantive, rather than unreflective or impressionistic.

5. Traits of Substantive Writing • Substantive Writing Is • reflective rather than impressionistic. • framed by metacognitive awareness. • expressed in analytical language (Elements of Reasoning). • a systematic process for discovering, synthesizing, analyzing, and assessing truth, content, meaning, and significance. • centered around a significant, well-defined intellectual task – must have significant content. Traits taken from Richard Paul and Linda Elder, How to Write a Paragraph: The Art of Substantive Writing

6. Writing Assignment Requirements • Minimum of 4500 Words of Written, Graded Assignments. • 3 – 4 Essays of at Least 1000 Words Each. • Essays should Incorporate Borrowed Material from Multiple Class Readings (and Possibly Outside Sources). • Essays should adhere to correct MLA documentation standards.

7. HMXP Writing Assignments • Essays should require students to integrate and synthesize ideas and arguments from multiple classroom texts (with possible personal application). • Essays should be argumentative or deliberative, and should contain a focused, specific, risky thesis (stance), complex analysis, and concrete evidence. • HMXP Suggested Writing Assignments

8. Necessary Writing Skills in HMXP Students must be able to • Critically read and analyze complex texts (understand texts’ meaning, significance, implications, assumptions, conclusions, and claims). • Synthesize disparate and conflicting ideas and draw conclusions. • Organize ideas into coherent arguments with claims, sub-claims, and evidence.

9. Fostering Critical Analysis of Texts • Consider Incorporating the Elements of Reasoning • Interactive Elements Wheel • “The Logic of an Article,” HMXP Resources

10. The Elements of Reasoning • Encourage Students to Consider the Text’s • Purpose (stance, argument, thesis) • Central Questions at Issue • Point of View (of author or speaker) • Concepts (key ideas) • Assumptions (unstated or underlying beliefs) • Information (data, facts, evidence) • Conclusions, Inferences • Implications and Consequences (of claims or conclusions)

11. The Standards of Critical Thinking • Encourage students to assess their own and other’s claims, texts, and ideas based on the Standards of Critical Thinking: • Clearness • Accuracy • Relevance (Importance, Significance) • Sufficiency • Precision • Depth • Breadth • Logic

12. Academic Discourse • HMXP students are typically notyet used to seeing themselves as full members of the academic community. • HMXP is an ideal context in which to teach academic discourse and academic engagement. • Bohm’s concepts of “communication” and “listening” • Invite students to the table!!

13. Academic Discourse • Academic papers are constructed within a “They Say, I Say” context – not written in a vacuum. • “They say” – other readers, thinkers, and scholars think this about my topic . . . • But “I say” – my perspective, argument, contention, point of view, claim is . . . • Students’ ideas and arguments should be articulated clearly in classroom discussions, and should ultimately result in a thesis, or stance, on a topic. • Students must feel accepted and respected in order to see themselves as capable of scholarly contributions and insight.

14. Moving From Topic to Thesis • General Topic to Focused Topic to Research Question to Working Thesis to Final Thesis • The HMXP Thesis should be • Narrow • Specific • Clear • Assertive • Focused • Arguable (“Risky” or “Controversial”)

15. The HMXP Thesis Statement • Problematic Thesis: • In Plato’s TheAllegory of the Cave, Plato addresses the process whereby people move from ignorance to increasing knowledge about what is real. • (Statement of fact; too broad, not risky enough, not specific enough…) • Encourage students to focus on “how” and “why” questions – implications, significance. • Making thesis statements more specific leads to arguable (controversial, “risky”) stances.

16. Better Thesis Statement • Although Swimme argues that consumerism functions as a guiding cosmology for Americans, I will argue that a personal commitment to a religious faith system effectively “inoculates” Americans from excessive consumerism, providing them with an alternative set of values, priorities, and beliefs that work against consumerism and materialism. • See Dr. Fike’s “How to Write the College Essay” PowerPoint for an excellent discussion of the “Although . . . I will argue” structure for the controversial thesis statement.

17. Essay Organization • Though students will have had instruction on essay construction in WRIT 101, you may want to provide instruction or clarify your expectations in terms of • Coherence • Transitional Statements • Focus on Central Idea (Thesis) Throughout Body • Introduction and Conclusion • Placement of the Thesis Statement • Use of the pronoun “I” (okay if used appropriately)

18. Incorporation of Borrowed Material • Please require students read and annotate the document “The Correct Use of Borrowed Information,”located in the back section of the Prentice Hall Reference Guide and linked on the Department of English website, the Dacus Library website, and the HMXP website. • This document explains how to avoid plagiarism and how to incorporate borrowed material into papers correctly. • The Department of English website has many other helpful writing instruction resources.

19. Incorporation of Borrowed Material • All source material should be introduced, identified, and evaluated: • Introduce • David Bohm contends . . . • Identify • David Bohm, theoretical physicist and author of “On Communication,” contends . . . • Evaluate • David Bohm, theoretical physicist and author of “On Communication,” thoughtfully contends . . .

20. Why Teach Writing Skills in HMXP?? • HMXP is about critical reading, critical thinking, and the analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of significant, complex texts and claims. • We demonstrate the quality and sophistication of our thought through verbal and written language. • We can only “think” as well as we can communicate our thoughts. • Helping our students to articulate their ideas clearly, persuasively, and logically helps them to become competent, skilled, proficient thinkers and full participants in the academic community. Invite HMXP students to the table!!