Teaching 102: Written Argument and Research One TA’s (perhaps undertheorized) approach

“Start with the title”  Written Argument and Research  Really about three things: Reasoning and rhetoric (Argument) Ethnography (Research) Literacy (Unnamed Component)  The course involves overt instruction, situated practice and reflection involving all three

Stasis of definition What are we talking about here when we say, “literacy”? Reading and writing? Numeracy? Visual media savvy? Competency in general? Appeal to (relevant) authority: literacy centers on the encoding and decoding, or the production and consumption, of written text—in various social, political and cultural contexts* (Brandt, Barton and Hamilton, Resnick) *Sorry, it’s just that academic tick: “-al” endings.

Stasis of definition  Not “text” in the postmodern, cultural-studies sense (lampshades in this class will not be considered “texts” unless there is writing on them)  Not “literacy” as a synonym for savoir-faire, know-how or learned ability  Writing in the (fairly) common sense—“scripts”*—only we’re including out-of-school as well as in-school literacies Students study this (in various forms) Students practice this (academic literacies) May involve multimodality *If you please.

Who empowers/enables reading and writing, and who benefits? “An analysis of sponsorship systems of literacy would help educators everywhere to think through the effects that economic and political changes in their regions are having on various people’s ability to write and read, their chances to sustain that ability, and their capacities to pass it on to others.” —Deb Brandt, “Sponsors of Literacy”

Where and when is textual content actualized? “Turning to another basic concept, literacy events are activities where literacy has a role. Usually there is a written text, or texts, central to the activity and there are practices and are shaped by them.” —David Barton and Mary Hamilton, “Literacy Practices”

Text as artifact Artifact: “a material object that belongs to and represents a culture” (Sustein and Chiseri-Strater) “These are the questions about the kinds of situations in which literacy is practiced, that is, in which people engage with written texts. Who are the actors—both readers and writers—in these situations? How do they define themselves in relation to the texts they engage with, to each other, to other people who may also engage with those texts? Why are they reading and writing? What are they attempting to do with the written word? What kinds of institutional or broadly social invitations, permissions, and constraints influence their activities?” —Lauren Resnick, “Literacy In School and Out”

The Final Project: An empirical paper  This paper can be written in numerous ways, but I have chosen the structure of the empirical paper as a way for students to record and make sense of their ethnographic findings Introduction Methodology Results Discussion References  Benefits: Organizes a lot of information Exposes students to a genre they may later encounter  Drawbacks: Can seem “cold” or too “scientific” May take away some imaginative possibilities away from arrangement