Today’s main topics: Concluding Phase 1; Looking a sample of a student’s submission for today’s Peer Review; Peer Review Session; Looking ahead to Phase 2.

Agenda

• Concluding Phase 1
• Looking a sample of student submission for today’s Peer Review
• Peer Review Session
• Looking ahead to Phase 2

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Concluding Phase 1: The Multimodal Language and Literacy Narrative Assignment

• < 10 minutes: I want to take a few minutes to honor the hard work that we have done in this phase. Though this phase terminates in the WLLN Draft 3, let’s also look at all the assignments we have done. There are 12 assignments we have done!! That’s a fair bit of writing!! We have done 3 Rhetorical Situation Worksheets, a Response paper (Tan), a brainstorm, a “snapshot”, in-class emails to me, peer-review, and 2 drafts of the Written Language and Literacy Narrative, with a third draft due on Monday (see the email I sent for details and our homepage included the same information as a reference).
• What I think is important to highlight here is that we are engaging in this class in the PRACTICE of writing (this is a PRACTICE based class), and recognizing that writing is a RECURSIVE PROCESS that can – and should – involve different steps or tools. I highlight this because it has been my experience that we sometimes think the work we produce is “just” the final paper. But this “final paper” involves much labor, and all of this is “writing.” So, recognize what you have done to this point and honor yourself for your hard work, and the attention and care you have given your work. Each step in the writing process points to the creation of, and the reviewing of, a text. This is the “recursiveness” of writing. With this in, mind, can we “name” some of the recursive steps that we have done?
  
  Hint: Peer review is one of these steps…

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Looking at a student submission as a sample for today’s Peer Review

When you go into peer-review today (breakout rooms) you will be offering each other what you have selected from your WLLN’s.

As practice, I will model an approach, based on Umaima’s submission. It is important to remember that as I do this, this is a SUBJECTIVE analysis based on what I see. Others may find something different, and that’s ok too. We are engaging to some degree in speculation, but our analysis should be grounded in the text.

This is from Korina, and she has given me permission to share it with the class.

“I thought I spoke perfect English, but I learned that day that I spoke broken English.”

“I changed my language depending on the people I was with.”

“The rest of her speech was in English, yet some still wouldn’t understand it.”

“Why is someone considered illiterate if they speak broken English?”

“Why should she suffer and be the illiterate one if she can understand what English speakers say but they can’t understand her?”

“Not understanding my language is like not understanding my identity.”

“Speaking broken English as an Indo-Caribbean shows I’m part Indian and part Caribbean. Thus, for someone to make fun of my language is equivalent to making fun of my culture and who I am. The people of my culture aren’t illiterate and speak fluently in their own language.”

“I explained every dish and helped them pronounce each one the “broken English” way, the CORRECT WAY Indo-Caribbeans pronounce their food. It was my way of representing Guyana through language.”

MY SAMPLE ANALYSIS:

Korina, throughout the selections from your text, I see you making a connection between a certain pattern of speaking – “broken English” to use your term – and questions of identity. In particular, you highlight the negative effects on identity on those who are perceived to be speaking “broken English.” Though this is not the only theme, or connection, it appears to be a dominant one. Though there are several interesting strands in what you present, I will choose the idea of “identity” as your dominant theme. You mention your own ability to change the way you speak depending on who you are with (your audience) and you also take the time to suggest that anyone with a non-standard way of speaking will be thought of as “less-than.” Am I correct in seeing this in what you have offered?

SIDE QUESTION: Given what we have read in Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue,” and the defense you offer on accent and dialect variation and it’s relationship to identity, I want to interrogate you a bit on the notion of “broken English” and ask whether you should more explicitly interrogate your own use of that phrase in your text. I offer this a thought – NOT a specific criticism!!!

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Peer-review Session

20 minutes (or so).

In peer-review, I want you to read each others selections, and make some comments on what you think these passages – be they short or a bit longer – are doing or suggesting to you. Remember, these are taken from a larger context, but they are meant to serve as representative of what that author is “doing” in their text when it comes to them relating their text to a larger theme (or issue) – AND/OR it is meant to be representative of what they “know.” Share your findings with the writer of the text you read. You will be reading 2 other people’s submissions.

Post peer-review discussion

It is my hope that you got something interesting out of the session, and that your peers saw what you intended, OR – sometimes even better – they revealed something to you that you did not realize was there. This does happen sometimes.

Here’s how I would like us to think of this exercise, and then how to use what we received from your peers:

First: think of what you offered from your text to your peers as a kind of annotation of your own narrative. (Perhaps it is even a “pre-annotation”.)

Second: consider what your peers offered you in response is an annotation of your annotation – a comment on your “comment.”

Third: hold on to these reflections from your peers, because I want you, as the writer of your WLLN, to consider their comments in a reflective postscript to your WLLN Draft 3, due on Monday, September 28th. It is my hope that your peers helped you to see what your narrative is “doing” when it comes to making a connection to a larger theme. I offer this because I know some of you have indicated having difficulty tying your narrative to a larger theme, or if you have done so, some have expressed some dissatisfaction with what you have produced. This is all ok whatever the case may be.

But this exercise was also designed to help raise your awareness around what you were doing (not just “saying”) in your text – whether by design, or unconsciously.

So think of the selection you made form your text as an annotation of your text. You may even want to write some notes (annotations) on what you have been given. Whatever you choose to do as far as this is concerned, please try to do the following.

Consider the comments you received and do a small reflection on them. Place this reflection at the end of your WLLN draft 3 at the conclusion of your text and label it “Postscript”. it should look something like this:

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Looking ahead to Phase 2

As we prepare to move into Phase 2 (The Rhetorical Analysis Essay) AND the assignment due on Thursday, October 1, let’s consider what we did today in peer-review.

• We looked at some brief moments from a text and practiced what we thought that text was “doing” in terms of laying out, implicitly or explicitly, a theme.
• In the same way that you practiced analyzing what a text was doing, do the same for the assignment.

Assignment Description (seen also in Phase 2, Thursday, October 1)

Choose any one of our (written or video) texts, ideally your fav, and complete a “Charting” worksheet using the “Charting” handout (Web | Word | PDF). Submit via email.

SAMPLE OF DOING from Korina’s text:

“Ayodeez pickney nuh know how we dis grow up. We grow up hard. Abe grow inna back dam. Minding cow, plucking chicken. Only ting we had to eat most morning to fill we belly is plain roti. Get up every morning and cook we own breakfast and wash we own dish. Getting up whataclock a morning, cooking roti pon di tawa. But you nah goh know bout dat. So, you guh eat what me make you fuh lunch. Don’t twist up yuh face and tell me yuh nah want to eat it. Don’t make style.”

The above quotation is from the beginning of Korina’s WLLN. What do you think this is DOING?????