FLC Portfolio

For

ENGL1301: Composition I

Sunny Jiang Schultz English/Humanities

Fall 2008

Lee College, Baytown, TX 77520

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Table of Contents

Introduction: thoughts on the need to teach critical thinking skills………………..3

Course syllabus …………………………………………………………………….7

Critical Thinking through Reflective Learning …………………………………….9

Overview of the Three Practices……………………………………………9

Practice 1 ………………………………………………………………….10

Appendix A: assignment handout ..……………………………….12

Appendix B: model and student’s sample summaries ..………12 -13

Appendix C: students’ reflective paragraphs……….……………..13

Practice 2 ………………………………………………………………….15

Practice 3 ………………………………………………………………….19

Appendix A: handout of research paper topics …………………...19

Appendix B: two samples of paragraph revisions ………………...20

Appendix C: excerpt of synthesis from a research paper………….21

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………24

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………….25

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Introduction

My thoughts on the need to teach Critical Thinking skills Humans differ from other placental mammals by our persistent search and longing for meanings in our lives, according to anthropologists like Edward T. Hall and Clifford Geertz, etc.. The meanings, in other words, add quality or authenticity to human lives individually and collectively. This quest for meanings over millions of years has trained our brains to think about everything we see, hear, feel, taste, and do. To make the information that we sense meaningful, our brain learns to create goals, ask questions, evaluate information, draw inferences, examine assumptions, conceptualize for action, foresee implications, and look out for different points of view, as Richard Paul’s diagram1 has mapped out. The sum of these critical thinking skills contributes largely to the continuation of each generation’s knowledge and critically to the advancement of mankind. These skills are becoming something like endangered species, sounding off from many educators. In the old days, humans had plenty of time to do the thinking as the pace of life was slow. That has been overturned, ironically, by the invention of various technologies that have invited a fast-pace lifestyle which tantalizes our senses but leaves us little time for thinking. The balance between sensual experiences and careful thinking to obtain their meanings has been tilted. One can see the striking differences and devastating consequence, though expressed symbolically in motion pictures, of such an imbalance through the image of a confident Bushman dumping a Coca Cola bottle in Gods Must Be Crazy and the image of Chaplin’s mindless character in Modern Times. The thoughtless surfing on the Internet, as the most recent tech toy permits, is no less prevailing. With effortless flip of web pages, the users pause as momentarily as a dragonfly does on the surface of moving water. This mental erosion, from complex meaning-seeking to mindless pursuit of stimulation, calls for full attention to critical thinking skills. This negative intellectual evolution has made critical thinking more valuable for human survival and quality of life.

Such life-style change brings us a different breed of students. They are pressured by the pace of today’s daily routine. They have to tackle the challenges from families, full-time jobs if not two or three jobs, and often unrealistic school course load. As a result, they rush in and dash out of our classes in search of classes that require the least tolerable time and effort. A typical student reads half heartedly the assignments and habitually thinks little about them. Thus, a common retreat is to regurgitate information. There is less and less time to see what they read, to listen to what they hear, and to understand what they feel. When threatened by a dutiful professor, they take the least necessary steps to collect information but spend no time to think about it. Such mental behavior runs against the intellectual requirement of a democratic society and against the demand of highly and internationally competitive work environment. The students as they come to us, unprepared of disciplined and time-consuming thinking, have dictated that college classes teach critical thinking skills. Under the pressure of time, students need to be motivated to recognize that the critical thinking makes them effective learners at school and productive employees in future.

1 Paul, Richard. “Critical Thinking: Basic Theory & Instructional Structures” Berkley: Foundation for

Critical Thinking, 1999.

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This does not happen easily, however. The academic disciplines seem like a kaleidoscope to our type of students, except the picture is not as coherent. They must have sensed the invisible walls from the discipline of history, to that of language art, of math, of biology and of medical terminology. Each appears a la-la land with a different landscape. They enter each discipline, feeling the initial excitement, but frequently finding themselves disorientated, or worse, lost. In the midst of the mind-boggling disciplines, their attention is split and their time is running tight. To help them succeed in the confusing network of knowledge divided into so many compartments, critical thinking offers the transferable skills from one discipline to the other.

The above discussion brings us to the question of how courses like English can cultivate critical thinking skills in our kind of students at our contemporary times. There is some demystification to do. For example, when the students, some after having almost finished their degree plan courses, finally dip their feet into English classes, they are all the more careless, assuming that English is the hardest because it is the most boring subject. It’s paradoxically also a lame course since they start speaking the language at two year old and writing it at six. What’s there to learn and what’s there to pay attention to. It should not take a brain to learn English. Little do they know that English is the subject area where they learn critical thinking skills, beyond and through vocabulary, grammar and composing, that they can readily use to improve their learning and grades in any other disciplines.

To teach critical thinking in a college composition course if the myth about English classes can be eliminated, the major issue is how to teach students to critically think about writing. Writing itself becomes the subject and goal for critical thinking. Different from other subjects such as fine arts, world wars, human brain, or air quality most of whose contents are objects to be observed and studied close-up or in distance, writing as a subject to teach critical thinking presents additional challenge. It suggests an extensive and deep self-discovery or looking into the mirror for the 1st time about students’ own writing behavior which includes their views, habits, and values on writing. For instance, many of them don’t believe that writing has any value in their life or career. One student nonchalantly told me that he would have his secretary to write for him. Many nursing students argued that all writings they do at their job are notes of incomplete sentences they report to doctors. In the eyes of many students, the art of language, its personal and social functions are reduced to nothing more than disjoint words or to a nuisance that the curriculum forces them to learn. To help students with these misconceptions about writing, this portfolio of three practices aims to demonstrate strategies that bring students around to critically think about their own writing and thinking processes.

Theoretically, the concept of logic, initially investigated and articulated by the Greek philosopher, Aristotle in the 3rd century B.C.E., has generated many branches or makeovers over the years and across the world. Related to the study of logic, American educators headed by Benjamin S. Bloom in 1956 first identified the concepts of “cognitive objectives”2 and mandated them into the curriculum of schools. About eight years later in 1964, another set of concepts of “affective objectives”3 were introduced to 2 Bloom, Benjamin Samuel and a committee of colleges and university examiners. Taxonomy of educational objectives, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. New York ; London : Longman, 1956. 3 ----. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook II: Affective Domain. 1964.

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complement the cognitive objectives. Thirty-five years later in 1999, Richard Paul wrote his “Elements of Critical Thinking”.

The table below abbreviates their respective concepts about educational objectives:

Benjamin S. Bloom’s Taxonomy I & II Richard Paul

1956

Cognitive objectives

1. knowledge 2. comprehension 3. application 4. analysis 5. synthesis 6. evaluation

1964

Affective objectives

1. receiving 2. responding 3. valuing 4. conceptualizing 5. organizing

1999

Elements of Critical Thinking

1. question 2. information 3. inferences 4. concepts 5. assumptions 6. implications 7. point of view purpose

While Aristotle’s logic underpins the above three sets of concepts, Bloom and Paul share two points but differ in three areas. Both of their theories aim at taking the students from the known to the unknown and believe these thinking skills are transferable from discipline to discipline divided by subjects. However, their differences are obvious. Bloom’s theory is broad including the performance and psychology of the learners whereas Paul’s narrowly focuses on thinking process; there is a hierarchical order or prerequisites in Bloom’s lists, especially the cognitive objectives; whereas Paul’s runs a circle of concepts any one of which can be the starting point of reasoning; and Bloom provides more concrete testing and evaluation of students’ performance; whereas Paul does not specify assessment. What’s important is that their theoretical educational objectives provide us with a rich pool of critical thinking skills that English 1301 can pick from to concentrate on in each lesson.

There are two other authors who had promoted reflective learning before Richard Paul. Their reflective-learning strategies to teach critical thinking skills as defined by Bloom and continued by Paul are quite instructive in practice. Patricia M. King, in her book Developing Reflective Judgment 1994, classifies seven steps grounded in the epistemology borrowed from John Dewey (1933, 1938) who “observed that true reflective thinking is initiated only after there is recognition that a real [ill-structured] problem exists and that the thinking person identifies a solution to the problem (6).” She advised us to pin-point ill-structured problems in a discipline as a teaching strategy of critical thinking. Her contemporary colleague Bruce G. Henderson in 1995 confirmed this point that “critical thinking occurs when there is a perceived discrepancy between the student’s personal theory (beliefs about an idea or event) and what the environment is presenting to the student in the form of an idea, question or event.” His article encourages the strategy to structure discrepancies, ill-structured problems in King’s terminology, into the delivery of course materials.

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The follow three practices model the strategies by King and Henderson in an attempt to effectively teach critical thinking skills outlined by Bloom and Paul in an English Composition course.

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Course syllabus English 1301DE01&02: Composition I Instructor: Sunny J. Schultz, Ph.D. Office: BH205 Phone: 281-425-6429 Division chair: Dr. Gordon Lee Phone: 281-425-6417 Secretary: Ms. Susan Keith Phone: 281-425-6503 Office hours: Discussion Board and/or office visits

Course objectives To provide students with concentrated study of the fundamentals of English language, training in critical reading and effective writing of prose, and study of principles of research. We’ll cover the reading and writing process including 1) critical thinking skills, 2) summaries, 3) elaboration, 4) modes of development, 5) synthesis including research, and 6) vocabulary and sentence structures.

Textbook and class materials • Course URL: http://webct.lee.edu • Fowler and Aaron. The Little Brown Handbook the 10th edition (LBH) • Readings posted in each unit accessible from the course homepage • A three-ring binder to keep the handouts and printouts

Policies on attendance, tardiness, rewrites and plagiarism Home computer problems won’t be considered as an excuse for late work because you always have access to a LC lab computer. Students who do not finish unit 1 by the end of the 2nd week may be dropped. From units 2 to 7, you have two weeks (midnight to midnight of the dates) to finish each unit; but if you turn in any units’ assignments late, you have the following choices: 1) make it up in the final exam, or 2) get one-letter grade drop, or 3) be dropped from the course. Students are responsible for a drop, should it become necessary. An “F” will be assigned as your grade if you don’t process the drop paper work. An “I” will be recorded if you have finished 75% of the course workload and signed a contract with me.

Absences and tardiness are tracked by the computer when you submit any assignments. You are not tardy as long as you finish each unit according to its schedule posted in the Course Content page. However, you should not dilly-dally till the due date (midnight of it) because each assignment in a unit, big or small, takes time to work on.

Since the paper assignments overlap and are revised for each submission, there is no separate rewrite.

Plagiarism means that you borrow other sources’ ideas and wording, including your classmates’, without giving proper MLA documentation in the LBH. A paper that is found to contain plagiarized materials will receive a zero as the grade. Intellectual honesty is strictly observed at Lee College.

Calendar and assignments (relevant to the 3 practices are italicized in bold) Each assignment is small but accumulative so that you will learn the required contents incrementally. (Please view or copy the dates from the Course Content page online) Unit 1: two weeks: on-campus and on-line orientations Unit 2: two weeks: description-narration, summary and synthesis - project paper 1 Unit 3: two weeks: cause-effect, summary and elaboration

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Unit 4: two weeks: classification-division, summary and synthesis - project paper 2 Unit 5: one week: mid-term reflection Unit 6: two weeks: comparison-contrast, summary and elaboration Unit 7: three weeks: research and synthesis - project paper 3 Unit 8: two weeks: course summary and a proctored final exam for tardiness There are also weekly drills on vocabulary, sentences, MLA documentation, and drawing inferences.

Procedure to be successful Log in daily and follow the Units as they become available on the Course Content page. Pay attention to the unit's schedule. Within each Unit, please click on every link and make sure you don't miss any assignments.

Grading scale Quizzes 100 out of 140 points = 10%; Portfolio that includes Sentence Revisions, Summaries, Elaborations and post one reflective message per unit in the Discussion Board (DB) that discusses the differences between your work and the models; and your plan to improve in the next unit 100 points = 25%; Project papers 1&2: 200 points = 30%; Project paper 3: 100 points = 25%; attendance: prompt submission of all units’ assignments or earned points from a proctored final exam 100 points = 10%

Scholastic expectations If the counselor allows you to sign up for this college English 1301 Composition I course, I make these assumptions. You have passed a college placement test or ENGL0301 and 0302 that demonstrates your knowledge of grammar, reading skills and writing abilities to take the challenge of this new class. You feel comfortable with a computer and also see the need to improve your writing.

Online etiquettes Like a class in a regular classroom, the professor and students together create a friendly and constructive learning environment for all. Toward this goal, we should stick to these basic rules. Do not type in capitalization online because it reads like screaming at others, except for occasional emphasis. All questions, if you prefer the online route, are equally important and should be asked in the DB, not personal email. Everyone is encouraged to express one's own opinions that are supported. A supported opinion or claim stands until it's challenged by new evidence. Your language should be informal but friendly in the BB; however, should be formal and correct in summaries, elaborations and project papers.

Blackboard tools The left frame in the homepage gives you several bars. Use “Course Content” to access all course assignments. "Discussion Board" (DB) is the major tool for you to ask questions and get replies, etc.. DB has many buttons to compose, sort, and compile messages. You should be able to view quiz and paper grades in the "Grades Report"; but a “partial” grade for sentence revision, summary and elaboration.

Note Please do not hesitate and wait to ask any questions about the information and ground rules in this syllabus by either visiting me in the office or posting them in DB.

The end

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Critical Thinking through Reflective Learning Overview of the Three Practices The three practices cultivate reflective learning habits in order to instill critical thinking (CT) skills. Specific CT skills will be identified, based on the educational objectives by Bloom and Paul, and teaching strategies by King and Henderson will be employed, as both discussed in the Introduction of this portfolio. Students’ learning habits and CT skills will be honed incrementally through a few content subjects commonly taught in ENGL1301 Composition. The assignments are given to be worked on in class, outside of class and/or online. Lectures are timely inserted only to facilitate students with their discovery. As Bloom explained clearly that internalization of both cognitive and affective objectives takes many years and numerous courses to accomplish, these practices guide students largely to reflect on their learning experiences so as to internalize the course subjects, to identify their own CT skills, and, therefore, to correct or adjust their learning habits.

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Practice 1 – Writing summaries Intent of the Practice: As an indispensible writing genre in our information overload times, the students will be exploring its dynamics, including its purpose, audience, claims, supports, and styles. While learning to write quality summaries, students are paused frequently to examine the choices they make in the writing process. They are led to gradually recognize the “ill-structured problems”4 planted for them to come up with their solutions on their own. These problems could be any elements in the dynamics of writing a summary. This assignment aims to make students become more aware of the dynamics, even if their products – summaries, still need further practice to be perfect. How can students be made aware of their own writing behavior? King’s concept of “ill-structured problems” helps bring the students out of their own world about writing. They are led to view writing as the subject they need to spend time, effort, intelligence, and skills on. They are to find their own writing in the spot light, under the microscope, and in comparison to be studied.

Objectives: The objectives of this assignment are two-fold: learn to write quality summaries and to use critical thinking skills of 1) assumption, 2) point of view, 3) purpose, 4) analysis, 5) inferences, 6) implication.

Procedures: In the beginning of a semester, I start students with an assignment that students believe, rightly so, they know how to do it: to write a summary.

The class starts with their summary of a five-page article in the students’ hands, a signal to the students that their summary is the subject of the lesson. Before the class, the choice of the summary article should contribute to the goal of self-discovery. For example, Mary Crow Dog’s “Lakota Woman” 5 is an autobiographical article. Her personal experience as an Indian in the American culture sharply contrasts with that of the average students. Such contrast provokes students emotionally, intellectually, and culturally, which follows Henderson’s theoretical approach that “a direct response to discrepancy or uncertainty in logic, fact, opinion or perspective provides many opportunities for the exercise of [critical thinking].”6 Such disposition influences students’ writing of the summary in many ways conducive to their critical thinking about their own writing. I, too, bring a summary (a model) to share with the students but purposefully to provide the “discrepancy… in the form of an idea, question, or [choices]” 7 necessary in the writing process. Our summaries become the texts for students to critically think about the writing. More effectively, we would erase the names, mix the papers, and then redistribute them. This strips the writing of its students’ identity in order to focus our discussion on the writing itself. Each student is given a copy of the model summary to compare with one student’s summary or their own (appendix B). Observing the two 4 King, Patricia. Developing Reflective Judgment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1994. 5 Crow Dog, Mary. “Lakota Woman.” American Voices. Ed. Dolores LaGuardia and Hans P. Guth. 3rd ed.

Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1998. 35-39. 6 Henderson, Bruce G. “Critical-Thinking Exercises for the History of Psychology Course.” Teaching of

Psychology. 22.1 (1995): 60. 7 ----. “… critical thinking occurs when there is a perceived discrepancy between the student’s personal

theory [beliefs about what writing is] and what the environment is presenting … in the form of an idea, question, or event.”

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versions of a summary on the same article, they write down the similarities and differences. Based on their notes, they compose a reflective paragraph to express their findings. The students’ reflective paragraphs (appendix C) reveal well their learning that a discrepancy in the lesson has produced. Their observation, recognition, and desire to update their writing skills can hardly be achieved in a lecture where usually a topic is given with a list or a discussion of steps to go through. In their reflections, many students first find that their summaries are unnecessarily longer than the model. Usually students view the length of a piece as just having more or fewer words; it has nothing to do with other aspects of writing. To present a different view about a writer’s choice of the length, I question them about the purpose and audience8 for summaries. Although it’s premature to conclude that students thoroughly understand all implications of an audience in summary writing, the questioning starts them off to think twice that an understanding of the audience ultimately guides a writer to determine the length of a summary. The obvious length discrepancy leads them to discover secondly that their summaries have either missed the author’s claim and emotional tone, or not expressed them clearly, or not placed them in the right spot. They recognize that such errors misrepresent the author’s message and, worse, mislead the audience. They begin to see the role of a summary writer as important, even critical in the loop of communication. In the differences, students then detect a demand for a classification of massive details in writing a summary. They find themselves confronted with a writer’s dilemma of what to include and what to cut out in a summary. They are confused between the words: details and supports. However, their perplexity makes them see the need to take the article apart; therefore, engaging them to learn the concepts of analysis and classification9. In the spotlight of comparison, they identify the language quality in the model as better. Their observation goes as deep as the syntax structure, the diction choices as well as MLA documentation style. They realize that they take for granted the language they speak daily. If they change to view sentence and word choices in the context of the purpose and audience, they can summarize much more faithfully and persuasively as the model does. What’s important is that they feel they could do better if they try next time. Through the exercises and discussions, students become more aware of the elements involved in composing a summary. They recognize the following areas they must critically think about their own writing in future. • Respect and be faithful to the author’s claim (CT assumption and point of view) • Sensitivity to the audience (CT purpose of writing a short but accurate summary) • Identification and verbalization of the author’s claim and tone (CT drawing inference) • Classification of the support/evidence (CT analysis and inference)

8 Aristotelian Rhetorical Triangle and Purpose in Richard Paul’s “elements of critical thinking.” 9 Analysis of Organizational Principles in Bloom’s Taxonomy and Information in Richard Paul’s “elements

of critical thinking”

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• Language quality (CT assumption about written and spoken styles and CT implication of twisting the original article for the audience)

• Documentation style (CT information) The above procedures are repeated four times during the entire semester as a way for students to process the adjustments and internalize the dynamics of writing a summary. The examples included in the appendixes A and B, as done in real class situations, speak loudly to what extent the reflective learning strategies have helped students learn the course subject: the genre of writing a summary on one hand; and the critical thinking skills on the other. Appendix A Assignment handout: Writing Summaries

During this semester, you will write four summaries in units 2, 3, 4 and 6; compare them with model summaries; and write reflective paragraphs about the differences. Based on your comparison, you can make adjustments in the next summary assignments.

For Unit 2, please bring to class your summary of the article by Lakota Woman. There is no requirement how to do it. You should write it the way you believe a summary is supposed to be.

The grading has two parts: 50 points for the submission of the summary; and 50 points for that of the comparative paragraph. The total is 400 points which is 15% of your final grades.

Appendix B Samples used in this class: (archived in WebCT server) Note: Students’ examples are original and their errors are not corrected. A typical student’s summary sample:

Mary Crow Dog is a Lakota Sioux Indian living on a South Dakota reservation. She grew up in a one room cabin with a sister and her mother. She Marries Lenard Grow Dog, who was a chief medicine man amongst the movement of Indian pride during the sixties and seventies. Mary Crow Dog rose from desperate beginnings to find the ways of her Indian ancestors. She believed that it was the every day problems that kept her down; such as predjuce against her by whites, pure blood Indians, and men alike. However, she believed that life for Indian is also difficult. The “Braves” were forced to change their way of life to support their families. Mary Crow Dog is proud of her heritage. Her people were forced onto the South Dakota reservations but they never lost their Sioux culture. The older Sioux of that time were able to assist them in remembering their ways. Her Sioux grandfather continued the tradition of make Indian flutes. He also brought Mary Crow Dog to her first Sioux meeting. Her grandfather had also witnessed atrocities against their people when he was young and shared his experiences with Mary Crow Dog. After her people went to the reservations Mary Crow Dogs

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people lost most of their history and they even converted to Christianity to avoid persecution. After a complication in her birth, Mary Crow Dogs mother had to be driven over ninety miles on a stormy night to a hospital capable of handling the complication. Mary Crow Dog is half Sioux and half white, but because of her treatment by other whites, she became ashamed of her white blood. Lenard Grow Dog and his family have a greater history. The Crow Dogs resisted white persecution against Sioux customs on the reservations and continued to practice them openly. The fist Crow Dog was a famous man who was to be punished for killing another Sioux but was later forgiven because killing another Sioux was not a crime. The history of the Sioux and Indian peoples is a long history and crosses the entire country. Though Mary Crow Dog knows, they can not live off of their history forever, and must make their own history.

Summary model that inserts “ill-structured problems” or “discrepancies”: Crow Dog, Mary. “Lakota Woman.” American Voices. Ed. Dolores LaGuardia and Hans

P. Guth. 4th ed. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1998. 33-35.

The author's personal stories, told in the context of her family life and history of many Indian tribes, reveal a genocidal history and a revival of Indian cultures. Her people lost their land, horses and were forced to speak a foreign language and believe an alien religion since the new settlers came to the continent. In the crossfire of the two cultures, her experience growing up as an half Indian and half white individual in the American culture is presented as painful, oppressive, and confused until she finds her identity later in her life. She recalls the humiliating assimilation of her tribe(s) and family into the Anglo culture, the hopeless downfall of the Indian men, and the cruel victimization of the women as a result. While she is regretful that she is deprived of a pure Indian family and tormented by her tribal history, she finds it fulfilling and comforting to marry into a full Indian blood family that leads a cultural revival movement.

Appendix C Some samples of students’ reflective paragraphs: (Only the initials of the students’ names are kept for confidentiality. Original is archived in Blackboard.)

Subject: Lakota women Topic: Unit 1 differences in summaries Author: WH Date: January 23, 2008 12:53 AM My summary was way to lengthy and some of the points I focused on were totally off on the main topic of the summary but I've realized how and where I need to improve on summarizing these kinds of paragraphs. Subject: Lakota Woman Topic: Unit 1 differences in summaries Author: LF Date: January 25, 2008 12:06 AM

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I think I had the general ideas correct but I lacked on specific details. The answer was a lot more graceful and meaningful than mine. I think for my next summary I will concentrate more on the specific details rather than the general ideas and try to put more information and less words. Subject: Unit 1 Topic: Unit 1 differences in summaries Author: J T Date: January 25, 2008 5:56 PM One difference I noticed in the key is that I did not have a works citied page. The key and my summary share the same topics. Yet, the summary has a better quality of vocabulary and accurate language skills. I feel if I would have written more clearly my summary would have been as good as the key. Finding the classification of detailed supports was reached in my summary, but it should have been in the same sentence style. My sentences were not long, nor complex. Subject: Lakota Woman Topic: Unit 1 differences in summaries Author: D C Date: January 25, 2008 12:52 AM The length of my summary was comprable to the correct summary, however I had a very general overview compared to the specifics in the correct version. I also thought the correct version was able to generate emotion from me based on the picture that was painted. I reread my summary and felt nothing. Next time I will not be as rigid with the chronology of the article. Subject: Unit 2 Summary Topic: Unit 2 differences in summaries Author: J D Date: February 6, 2008 5:18 PM I think that I elaborated to much and made it more about my opinion than the story itself. I should have been more specific about details, people and places in the story. Also when I did my sentence revision I didn't detail each step so you don't know how I went about following the revision. Subject: Lakota Woman Topic: Unit 1 differences in summaries Author: L S Date: January 25, 2008 10:45 PM In my summary, I didn't completely convey the emotions of the article. Nor use complex sentences and varied vocabulary.

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Practice 2 – Writing a synthesis Intent of the Practice Moving further from summary genre where CT analysis and interpretation of a single text are emphasized, this assignment teaches students to write a synthesis. As a writing genre, synthesis requires students not only to take apart the components of one article or a single text; but also to look beyond and seek for connections between and among various sources. Having learned drawing inferences about one author’s claim in a single article, students will look around hard and carefully to see if one text provides the evidence or support for the next text; or one text is influenced by the general cultural forces; or one text is the result of a historical development; or one source compares or contrasts with others. By doing so, students learn to forge relationships among various texts for their own writing purposes, thus creating new knowledge for themselves and their target audience.

Objectives of this assignment are to teach another writing genre together with critical thinking skills of synthesis. As they are exposed, in doing the summaries, to some critical thinking skills, this assignment helps them review these concepts as well as synthesize them, especially 1) inferences, 2) concepts, 3) assumptions and 4) points of views.

Procedures Compared with writing summaries, students have much less experience writing synthesis; naturally have little confidence and understanding what a synthesis is and how to do it. The procedure, therefore, begins with group collaboration and then moves to individual work from employing simple to complex sources. Each pivotal step will provide students opportunities to reflect on comparisons between their syntheses and models.

Before the group starts working together, key terms like synthesis and sources are briefly defined. Students should understand that “synthesis” means combining theses to make a new point like chemicals are combined to make synthetic fabrics; that the word “sources” is broad to stand for a variety of formats of texts that contain a claim. They could be movies, television shows, a fine art, cartoon, government documents, newspaper articles, advertisements, fictions like short stories, poems, novels, plays or interviews. In addition, students must have finished reading and summarizing the assigned sources prior to the group work.

With the sources in their hands, students are divided into groups of three to five. Their task is to scavenge any connections they can see in the sources. Afterwards, there is a class meeting where connections found by each group are exchanged, compared, and assessed. The class as a whole, with the instructor as the secretary, verbalize the connections that are considered as the best ideas/points from all group discussions.

Activity 1:

Sources: Since this is the 1st time students try their hands on synthesis, the assigned sources should be those that students are very familiar with or that are very simple for them to read quickly with a good understanding of them. These sources should also be modeled in MLA documentation style. The handout of the four sources below meets those rules.

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Works Cited

Adams, Joe. “A Journal about a Magazine Booth” 12 Jan. 1994. The Lion King. Dir. Roger Allers. Perf. Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Buena Vista.

Home Video, 1993. “Prince Charles and Diane.” 20/20 Wednesday. ABC. New York. 1 Feb. 1996. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. London: Martin, 1600.

Scavenge connections in groups.10 Class meets to compare connections found by all groups. Verbalize the connections that the whole class considers as the best new ideas/points. • The marriage of the royal family was once considered as sacred for a culture; whereas

a divorce has become possible choices for a Prince and Princess. • In Shakespearean times, the disruption of a royal marriage was described as a national

tragedy and catastrophe. In contrast, the royal marriage, in our contemporary American culture, has become a commodity that the network and magazine publishers have used to attract advertising money to run their businesses. The King and Queen, who used to be those to whom everyone bows, are now equals with Bob Dole, Marilyn Monroe and McDonald’s cute commercials. If they still have any dignity, it is kept in fairy tales like The Lion King.

• If Americans seem crazy about English Kings and Queens as our movies, television

shows, and magazine articles present, it is because American culture has never had a royal family and people are fascinated with what’s it like to be subjects to a royal family.

Students’ responses towards the three finished connection statements are very rewarding to see, especially, their emotional take on them initially. The 1st statement spells out a deep cultural difference most students never think about. It never occurs to them that the American core value of choices can shed light on their interpretation of the old English culture. The 2nd statement is more acceptable (since they live in a commercial world right now), although no one has ever put it that way to them. The 3rd usually makes them feel uncomfortable and uneasy. However, I used this example to explain the difference of its negative tone and its use of the negative word “NEVER” in the sentence. The negative tone, though it may make them feel sick in the stomach, can be developed into a good argumentative paper. By contrast, the word “never” in the sentence, although grammatically correct, would make it a lousy connection/thesis statement for a paper because it violates the rule that a thesis statement should always be stated in a positive sentence. The strength of this activity lies in the fact that it provokes students emotionally which translates better into motives to write their own connection statements. 10 Unfortunately these data are not available any more because students usually do them in handwritten notes which are not collected.

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Intellectually, the four-step activity shows students that meaningful connections can be found and expressed, based on the sources by four different authors, about different subjects, in four different media (play, journal, movie and TV interview), produced during a time span of almost four hundred years, and from two different cultures. Activity 2 repeats the four steps in activity one but will be done individually, comparatively and reflectively.

Sources: The second time around, the sources are selected from the course textbook and/or new to all students. They must finish summarizing all of them before looking for connections.

Works Cited

Abbey, Edward. “Labor Day.” George and Trimber. 256. ---. “The First Morning.” George and Trimber. 252-256. Crow Dog, Mary. “Lakota Woman.” American Voices. Ed. Dolores LaGuardia

and Hans P. Guth. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1996. 33-37.

Goerge, Diana and John Trimbur, eds. Reading Culture: Context for Critical Reading and Writing. 3rd ed. New York: Longman, 1999.

The Truman Show. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Jim Carrey. Paramount, 1998. Reflect on your own connections and verbalization by comparing them with the model connection statements below in the handedout. • Culture is just as easily changed and destroyed as it is constructed. • Although it’s exciting to observe the emergence of new cultures, it’s heart-breaking

to witness the downfall of an old culture. • The fight over resources in the form of land or capital is the focus of all my sources.

Such battle has been historically constant and extremely consequential for American people.

• Lines should be drawn between business interests and protection of nature and human rights.

• Since individuals’ lives are dramatically affected by the culture, it is essential for us to participate in the process of its construction.

• Ethics involved in cultural construction must be established and taught in our education system. That’s the only way to guarantee that human lives be protected.

• The implication and ramification of culture construction need to be understood among voters who send people to the Congress and White House to make laws.

• Assuming Peter Weir’s The Truman Show has increased the awareness of the fact that culture is constructed, I would like to explore further if such fact is moral-free or/and value-free in the construction process.

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• Although it is a fact that culture is constructed as Peter Weir demonstrates in his movie, the question remains if a fact is a biological necessity for human beings to survive.

• Edward Ebbey’s claim not only serves as a criteria to critique the claims made by Peter Weir and Crow Dog; but also raises questions about responsibilities for a professional in my field.

The above reflective activity helps students see that connections can be made of cause-effect, comparative-contrast, contextual, and historical relationships. They also see that these connection statements are potential theses for papers, which light the bulb in their minds that the list means ten different synthesis papers could be produced. They learn that they can use the same process to create new knowledge on their own.

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Practice 3 – Integrating a synthesis to a research paper Intent of the Practice Unlike synthesis, many students believe they know how to write a research paper. Their belief is built on their experiences in the past to gather information or report on their findings of information. To integrate synthesis into a research paper, students will further learn the significance of writing accurate summaries and the importance to explore connections among and weigh the relevance of various sources. In doing so, they will learn that new knowledge is generated for a purpose, has implications and adds authenticity to their argument when used in the familiar genre: a research paper.

Objectives of this assignment are to teach a new component in a familiar writing genre together with critical thinking skills. As they are exposed, in doing the summaries and synthesis, to some critical thinking skills, this assignment helps them rehash these concepts, especially 1) information, 2) inferences, 3) points of views, 4) purpose and 5) implications.

Procedures An overview of the research paper is handed out right at the beginning of the semester; so that students can keep this assignment in their mind while writing summaries and synthesis. They see to it that summaries and syntheses prepare them to do a quality research paper for this course.

With the paper assignment in hand, they are to pick one topic out of a list (Appendix A). We use this opportunity to choose a topic to discuss its purpose and implication in terms of sustaining their interest for the entire semester, of building their knowledge for further education, and of predisposing themselves for their careers.

After their decision of a topic is made, they are instructed to revisit the articles they summarized and come up with strategies to integrate them as support for the goals/thesis of the research paper. They quickly discover that their project needs people or employees to accomplish. The characters in these articles are readily available for them to hire. At this point, I define the assignment further: in their hiring, they must hire one applicant but reject another one in each of the three papers. Then they write paragraphs to justify their hiring and rejection. These paragraphs serve as the building blocks for the research paper.

When they finish their paragraphs, volunteers are welcomed to submit theirs to me for the class to discuss the quality of the integration. I will use the students’ paragraphs and go over them sentence by sentence. During this laborious discussion, I usually delete or add while talking about ways to weigh the relevance of information; change word choices to clarify inferences made; switch pronouns to make point of view straight and consistent; move information around to sharpen the purpose of paragraph; and discuss the implications of direct quotes or paraphrases in establishing the authenticity of their claims. After we finish the in-depth examination of a student’s paragraph example (Appendix B), students are expected to extrapolate in their revision. The example serves as an effective comparison for them to reflect on their own paragraphs.

Based on the samples and collaborative revisions, the students make their own decision when and where to insert this portion (Appendix C) into their research paper.

Appendix A

Handouts of the topics

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1. To start a new business in your hometown: a day-care center, an employment service, a private eye agency, a restaurant, a retail store of electronics or furniture, a hotel/apartment management office, an auto-shop, a funeral home, or a photography studio, etc.

2. To organize an educational tour in a foreign country

3. To host a group of foreign tourists to visit the United States

4. To do a marketing commercial in your neighborhood for a car manufacturing company

5. To organize a group of ranchers to win championship in a Houston rodeo competition

6. To restructure the management team for an international oil or any corporation

7. To open a pediatric clinic in a large hospital

8. To sponsor a summer camp for the seniors of a high school

9. To start a museum exhibits about the unique makeup of American culture: the melting pot of multiple ethnic groups

10. To manage a group of astronauts to conduct a scientific research on Mars

11. To monitor the air pollution in your residential areas

12. To revitalize an ocean cruise line

Appendix B: paragraphing

Student’s sample on equipment for a day-care center Accommodations play a major role for the children and employees. Without accommodations such as a lounge for the employees, or nursery equipment, it would be quite difficult to operate the daycare at all. The nursery will need to have safe furniture and tools necessary to care for infants. Accommodations are important in any business to improve the quality that offered to the clients. They will also show the employees that they are valued and appreciated. Satisfying employees will multiply the quality of the care provided to the children.

Result of class discussion/revision which serves as the model for reflection Proper accommodations will provide quality care to the clients and make our employees feel appreciated and valued. To that end, I will work to either find a large building or construct a new site that will provide the necessary space for my employees to work, teach, and rest as well as for the children to study, eat, sleep and play. The offices, bedrooms, and classrooms must be spacious, decorated, and well-lit. However, the lounge and the playground where the employees and kids spend their leisure time will be specially designed to allow the maximum satisfaction. They will serve as the nice touch or a signature feature of the Center to attract the clients and maintain the best staff.

The playground, where my parents often dumped me to for half of the day, will be designed to meet the kids’ interest in fashionable sport. Besides all the ball games, kids

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will have access to a run for skateboarding. Mr. White who has extensive experience in nature (169-173) has been hired to make the run integrated into the nature surrounding the property. His blue print shows a five-mile run that winds in and out of the woods. Its surface is paved with cement painted in turquoise. The building material that he selected is to create a smooth surface with friction that’s just perfect for skateboarding…continue with more details

The lounge will surprise any who is hired by my Daycare. Describe the division with specifics in the same way you do with the playground.

Second student’s sample rejecting an applicants I have read over Richard Parker and I feel a little concerned about him. Based on his past experiences and emotional stages, I believe he is not capable of doing what is needed for this job. I need strong and confident employees that will not let anyone’s thoughts get to them. Richard to me seems like he has come a long way. Maybe in a year or two, based on his representation, I would hire him.

Result of class discussion which serves as the model for reflection I have looked over Richard Rodriguez’s application, resume and the essay I asked him to finish in half an hour after our interview. What he wrote reveals him as a reserved and shy person (Rodriguez 423 - 25). Teased constantly by his sisters, aunts, and cousins, he developed a syndrome that would not benefit my business. He shies away from people, especially females. From his father’s comments about his “soft hands” (Rodriguez 425), he took it negatively, although his father meant that, different from his other kids, he would be the educated man of the family. For better or worse, his personality that fears people and seems prone to negativity concerns me. I hesitate to hire him at this point but will keep him in mind. His sense of humbleness and more education may turn out to be an asset to my project in near future.

Appendix C

A student’s sample of revision after the reflection (one eighth of the entire research paper)

The connection between the validity of our business [Movie World magazine] and the quality of our employees can never be overstated. The long term mission depends almost entirely on the editorial content whilst advertising revenue is a constant necessity requiring a talented and motivated sales team. Furthermore the enterprise will not survive for long without quality leadership. Our hiring standards will be very demanding as demonstrated by the process in which we hired our first employee.

From the initial pool of applicants for a writing position, two strong contenders emerged. Both were strong and motivated writers but our determination to only hire the cream of the crop meant that only one was chosen. It is important to emphasize that our criteria for judging writing submissions is based not only on writing ability but also on writing style. Good distinction.

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Different styles suit different needs and we will reject some great writers because their style does not suit the particular tone we are looking for.

Of the two candidates, E.B. White was the more descriptive writer. His essay “Once More to the Lake” is a great example of his skillful use of prose. Its something of a cliché, but his words give you the feeling of being there. White captures the atmosphere perfectly creating vivid mental pictures. He achieves this by avoiding generalities and choosing concrete words to create a specific image. For example, instead of using the word ‘insects’ he identifies the dragonfly specifically (White).

Baker leaned more towards the straight forward narrative type of writing. His article “Selling the Post” makes greater use of dialogue and, in contrast to White, isn’t too concerned about inspiring mental images. He mentions he uses general words such as “dogs” and “magazines” (Baker 214-219). He has a point to make and his main priority is making it.

Furthermore, Baker had an extensive background in journalism, which again is more suitable to our needs, whereas White’s experience was more on the literary side, which is a world away from the magazine market. Baker’s previous jobs with the Baltimore Sun and New York Times give a certain credibility to his writing and a world of experience that can only enrich his articles for the magazine.

We want our readers to feel our passion for movies and in that sense White’s more descriptive style would be more effective. We have no doubts that his articles would be able to convey the sense of magic that movies sometimes evoke. However, the bread and butter of our business involves fact finding and delivering information. Despite both writers being incredibly talented it was patently obvious that the experience and style of Baker were the best fit for our needs.

Hiring the next member of our writing staff again involved comparing two high quality candidates. Rick Reilly’s extensive resume immediately proved attractive. He has experience in both writing for magazines and screenwriting itself. These qualities, combined with the humor most of his work exhibits, are very pertinent to a magazine like ours. Movie making is a crazy business and we need writers who can both identify and convey the ludicrousness that exists in the industry.

One example of his work, “Gentlemen, It’s Gut-Check Time” (Reilly 423-426), illustrates all of the strengths Reilly would bring to our magazine. He uses cause and effect analysis to detail the consequences of pursuing an almost an impossible level of physique, and this is just the sort of thing we are looking for as the world of movies is arguably even more bizarre and open to ridicule than the fitness industry. His knowledge of screenwriting would also add layers to his critique that a non-screenwriter might be unable to.

The second candidate, Richard Rodriguez, also has a wealth of experience to offer. The example of his work that he provided to us was entitled

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“Complexion”, which is an essay taken from his book Hunger of Memory. This was a collection of autobiographical essays that dealt with numerous themes that centered on growing up as a Latino student in California. “Complexion” is an extremely forthright account of Rodriguez’s struggle to come to terms with the color of his skin (Rodriquez 423-426). His integrity as a writer manifests itself in the honest way he writes about a subject that is both uncomfortable and personal. His Latino background would also add a different viewpoint to our articles and “Complexion” certainly suggests the ability to convey and debate some of the more thematically complex issues that arise from various movies.

Ultimately however, Reilly’s talent and industry background have to win the day and we feel he will be a great addition to our team.

The above excerpt from one student’s seventeen-page research paper, which is one of the better papers, demonstrates his/her learning of the critical thinking skills and composing skills of synthesizing multiple texts for the purpose of his project goals/thesis. These skills as the focus of this assignment are discussed in the 4th paragraph of the Procedure section of Practice 3.

Students’ MLA works-cited page sample as finalized after continuous revision based on the Little Brown Handbook. This final version in the research paper includes most of the articles the student summarized and integrated in the research paper, plus the library and Internet sources one particular student searched for.

Works Cited

Baker, Russell. “Selling the Post.” Nadell 214 - 219. Bear, Jacci Howard. About.com: Desktop Publishing. 2008. 01 March 2008

<http://desktoppub.about.com/od/software/f/graphicdesignsw.htm>. Bennis, Waren. Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. Bickerton, Pauline. Cyberstrategy. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998. Catton, Bruce. "Grant and Lee." Clouse 235 - 39 Clouse, Barbara Fine, ed. Patterns for a Purpose. 4th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2003. Consumer Search: Web Design Software Reviews. January 2008. 02 March 2008

<http://www.consumersearch.com/www/software/web-design-software/>. Crow Dog, Mary. “Lakota Woman.” American Voices. Ed. Dolores LaGuardia and Hans

P. Guth. 3rd ed. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1998. 35-39.

Hamill, Pete. “Crack and the Box.” Nadell 356 – 359. Morochove, Richard. "Office Accounting Professional." PC World. 2008. 18 Apr 2008

<http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140984-page,2003accounting/article.html>. Nadell, Judith. Ed. The Macmillan Writer: Rhetoric and Reader. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn

and Bacon, 2000. Reilly, Rick. “Gentlemen, It’s Gut-Check Time.” Clouse. 413-415. Rodriguez, Richard. “Complexion” Clouse. 423-426. White, E. B. “Once More to The Lake.” Nadell 169-173. Woolf, Gordon. How to Start and Produce a Magazine or Newsletter. Sydney: Cromarty

Press, 2004. The above samples are taken from the spring of 2008 semester.

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Conclusion This portfolio discusses my views on the need to teach CT skills cross the college curriculum and presents three practices in ENGL1301: Composition course. It traced the theoretical approaches proposed and promoted by scholars like Benjamin S. Bloom, Richard Paul, Patricia King and Bruce Henderson. The application of their concepts on CT skills and reflective teaching strategies in the English Composition course has been favorable and desirable, if not entirely successful. If the students persevere and stay in the class till the end of the semester, their performance writing summaries, synthesis and research paper improves tremendously as the samples included demonstrate. They have achieved even more in terms of their awareness of their own CT skills, composing capabilities, and plans of what they can do to make it better on their own, without me the instructor there, in their future writing tasks. Though such vigor has not shown much help to retain the students’ attendance, the positive part of teaching CT and reflective learning habit begins to show. To accomplish both retention and the educational goals, continuous tune-up or tinkering of these practices would be necessary in the years to come.

Notes: Students’ reflections about writing the research paper are available upon request.

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Bibliography

Bloom, Benjamin Samuel and a committee of colleges and university examiners. Taxonomy of educational objectives, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain. New York ; London : Longman, 1956.

----. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook II: Affective Domain. 1964. Bourne, Jill and Deborah Cameron. “Disciplining English: the construction of a national

subject.” Woods 10-20. Henderson, Bruce B. “Critical-Thinking Exercise for the History of Psychology Course.”

Teaching of Psychology. 22.1 (1995): 60-63. King, Patricia. Developing Reflective Judgment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers,

1994. McCann, Thomas M. and Larry R. Johannessen, Elizabeth Kahn, and Peter Smagorinsky.

Reflective Teaching, Reflective Learning: How to Develop Critically Engaged Readers, Writers, and Speakers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2005.

Paul, Richard. “Critical Thinking: Basic Theory & Instructional Structures” Berkley: Foundation for Critical Thinking, 1999.

Troman, Geoff. “Models of the ‘Good’ Teacher: defining and redefining teacher quality.” Woods 20-38.

Woods, Peter. Contemporary Issues in Teaching and Learning. New York: Routledge, 1996.