Teaching Reading & Writing in an Age of Acceleration

Tim N. Taylor Linda Copeland

Introductions: About Us

Tim Director of Comp at EIU

Linda Assistant Professor of English

at St. Louis CC

The State of Developmental Reading & Writing Courses

Developmental ReadingDevelopmental WritingStudio CoursesStretch ProgramsAccelerated Learning Courses, Co-

Req ProgramsIntegrated Reading-Writing Courses

The Outside Pressures

State Government

Upper Administration

Common Core Standards

The Pressures Within Our Classrooms

“Why am I in this course?” “How does this matter? I’m not going to

have to write in my job.” “I’ve always been a bad writer.” “I don’t like writing.” “I do my best writing under pressure.” “It was good.” [he didn’t do the reading] “Why do I have to do all this reading?”

One Way to Counter Those Attitudes & Notions

Use a reading and writing tool to guide and slow students down.

Read, Analyze, and Vote

Read these sample housing advertisements.

Using the IDEAS template, analyze and vote for which ad is the strongest and why.

Interest How does the ad try to capture readers’ attention?

Details Does the writer use concrete details to bring drama and clarity to the ad?

Explanation What facts and examples work to persuade the readers?

Audience What choices in language, details and explanation show consideration of the audience?

Style How does the writer use word choice, sentence variety, and level of formality to make the ad appealing?

Realtor A4321 Street Sunnyvale $xxx,xxx

Quick! Stop the car and take a look! Located in the Sunnyvale Retirement Community on a quiet cul-du-sac, this freshly painted, clean ranch is in great move-in condition. The large eat-in kitchen has been updated with new appliances. For entertaining, there is a spacious dining room area that opens up into the formal living room. You will love the three spacious, newly carpeted bedrooms, each with its own updated bathroom. The master bedroom is majestic with vaulted ceilings and lovely French doors that open out to the back courtyard with its meticulous landscaping. Don’t wait to see this fantastic home in a great neighborhood!

Realtor B4321 Street Sunnyvale $xxx,xxx

Retirement living is easy in this immaculate contemporary ranch home. The home features three spacious bedrooms, two luxurious bathrooms, and a stylish kitchen that flows through to the dining room. On cold winter evenings gather around the cozy warmth of the fireplace in the formal living room. Enjoy summer bar-b-ques on the Arcadia stone patio of your private courtyard with its professionally landscaped flower beds. This home is ideally located on a tranquil cul-de-sac in the highly desirable Sunnyvale Retirement Community, conveniently close to shops, restaurants, and entertainment. Live the retirement you have always dreamed in this beautiful home in a premier community.

Realtor C4321 Street Sunnyvale $xxx,xxx

This delightful brick ranch with an updated kitchen, three roomy bedrooms and two full baths is located in the desirable Sunnyvale Retirement Community. Enjoy all the benefits of this gated community with its pool, community center, and easy access to shopping, restaurants, and theaters. Entertain friends in the home’s spacious formal living room or outside in your private courtyard. The low maintenance yard has been professionally landscaped. The oversized garage has an extra storage area. The seller is motivated, so don’t wait, or you may lose your opportunity to experience comfortable and carefree living at an affordable price.

Who Gets the Sale?

Realtor A

Realtor B

Realtor C

Strengths Weaknesses

Now Write ~ Not Really

Use the IDEAS tool to generate ad copy.

A real estate firm has recently hired you as an advertising copywriter. Your first assignment is to write a one-paragraph advertisement for this home, which will be featured in a high-end real estate magazine. This home is in a new, upscale neighborhood of single-family homes in a good school district. Your target audience is young families. Keep IDEAS in mind as you write this paragraph.

Interest How will I capture readers’ attention?

Details What concrete details will bring drama and clarity to the ad?

Explanation What facts and examples will persuade the readers?

Audience What details and explanation do my readers need? What level of formality

do they expect?

Style How can I improve word choice, sentence variety, and the level of formality to

make the ad more appealing?

Reading & Writing an Ad

Connections students can make in exercises like this?

Key: Use a reading and writing tool.

How to Become a Successful Writer & Reader?

Research for Persuasion

Dweck on Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset

Duckworth and Tough on Grit

Dweck’s Findings

“People may start with different temperaments and aptitudes, but it is clear that experience, training, and personal effort take them the rest of the way” (5).

Dweck’s Findings

“This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts” (7).

Dweck’s Findings

“The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of a growth mindset. This is a mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives” (7).

Dweck’s Findings

“You have a choice. Mindsets are just beliefs. They’re powerful beliefs, but they’re just something in your mind, and you can change your mind” (16).

The Upshot from Dweck

“Skills and achievement come through commitment and

effort” (179).

Angela Duckworth’s Research

Via various research studies, she’s concluded that self-discipline is likely to trump IQ and that “grit” is key to long-term success.

In other words, strength of character means a lot.

Tough’s How Children Succeed

Duckworth and others’ research about motivation and “character” is now reaching a wider audience through Paul Tough’s How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character.

Traits Some Researchers Have Settled On

Tough provides seven character traits that are “likely to predict life satisfaction and high achievement” (76):

Grit Self-Control Zest Social Intelligence Gratitude Optimism Curiosity

The Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing

Curiosity – the desire to know more about the world.

Openness – the willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world.

The Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing

Engagement – a sense of investment and involvement in learning.

Creativity – the ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas.

The Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing

Persistence – the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects.

Responsibility – the ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others

The Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing

Flexibility – the ability to adapt to situations, expectations, or demands

Metacognition – the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking as well as on the individual and cultural processes used to structure knowledge.

Keys for Writing and Critical Reading

A Growth Mindset

Hard Work

Discipline

They have to care.

Strategies & Tactics To Consider “We must teach students how to read

model texts in ways that will inform the eventual writing that they will do and teach them to read in ways that help them to develop their understand of writerly strategies and techniques and that help them to identify genre conventions so they are better prepared to write in those genres” (Bunn 512).

Strategies & Tactics To Consider

Course design is key: “Design a course in which reading and

writing assignments build upon and reinforce each other” (Bunn 512).

Strategies & Tactics To Consider

Use a reading and writing tool in a consistent way.

Strategies & Tactics To Consider

Tie writing and reading to their Professional, Personal, and Civic lives.

Strategies & Tactics To Consider

Have students consistently practice metacognition—thinking about their thinking, their rhetorical moves, and the transfer value of their writing.

Other Strategies to Consider

Reader’s Guides KWL Tool Write, Pair, Share Bring Their Own Discussion

Questions Presenter-Respondent Format Discussion Leaders In-class writing

Web Searches of Note:

YouTube: Carol Dweck Duckworth’s “Grit Scale” YouTube: RSA Animate – Drive

Works Cited

Beaufort, Anne. College Writing and Beyond: A New Framework for University Writing Instruction. Logan, UT: Utah State UP, 2007. Print.

Bunn, Michael. “Motivation and Connection: Teaching Reading (and Writing) in the Composition Classroom.” College Composition and Communication 64.3 (2013): 496-516. Print.

Council of Writing Program Administrators, National Council of Teachers of English, and The National Writing Project.

Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing. Jan. 2011. Web. 5 Feb. 2011.

Duckworth, Angela A., Christopher Peterson, Michael D. Matthews, and Dennis R. Kelly. “Grit Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92.6 (2007): 1087-1101. Print.

Works Cited

Duckworth, Angela L and Martin E. P. Seligman. “Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents.” Psychological Science 16.12 (2005): 939-44. Print.

Dweck, Carol S. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine, 2006. Print.

Shipka, Jody. Toward a Composition Made Whole. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 2011. Print.

Sullivan, Patrick. “‘A Lifelong Aversion to Writing’: What If Writing Courses Emphasized Motivation?” Teaching English in the Two-Year College 39.2 (2011): 118-140. Print.

Tough, Paul. How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. Print.