Lulu: Blog Post #6

Before picking up this week's reading, I'd been thinking a lot about how to help my WC enrollment students tackle the kind of dense, scholarly reading that their professors often assign. All four of my enrollment students are freshmen and some of their reading has been so difficult and packed with academic jargon that they've confessed that they don't always complete it before class - especially when (as Bean points out) the professor will be explaining it in more accessible terms during the day's lecture. As an undergraduate, I absolutely relied on this same strategy - I'd skim a reading and then show up to the lecture expecting a full summary during class. Part of me still rails against the idea that standard academic writing has to be complicated enough that we need to slowly read (and then re-read) to be able to parse through the author's argument. Why can't everything be straightforward! No wonder students have difficulty "seeing themselves in conversation with the author" when the author sometimes seems to be speaking an entirely different language.

However, I do recognize that synthesizing complex information from difficult readings is a crucial skill that takes time and practice. I appreciated Bean's long list of ways to not just enforce this time and practice but to help students truly engage with what they're reading - to open up the "conversation" with the author and with each other. I especially like the idea of quiz questions developed by students and imagined interviews with the author.

Comments

  1. Yasmin BoakyeOctober 3, 2018 at 8:59 AM

    Thanks for this post Lulu! I definitely share that feeling of wondering why texts have to be so laden with dense terms, but then also -- and maybe this is just a result of being brainwashed by academia after all these years -- have learned to enjoy and find a kind of deep satisfaction in a texts that I finally 'get,' especially once I'm able to place them into conversation with other work. I like getting to feel like an insider and a participant in a culture that can feel unnecessarily exclusive. So I'm wondering if there are ways to evoke this feeling for students without them having to wait, as many do, for several years of intro and intermediate courses before they finally really 'get it.' One way this was done for me was through "Brief Introduction" style texts -- there was a comic book style reader we had in my research skills course that introduced the seminal texts of Cultural Studies and Critical Theory in a really efficient but still meaningful manner. I know there are various schools of thought about the value of these kind of abridged texts, but I think there's some creativity and kindness required if we really want to open up the ivory tower to all of our students.

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  2. UnknownOctober 3, 2018 at 10:38 AM

    I really like this post and this conversation! It can be hard to convince a student that they too will get that warm "i did it" glow from really working through a difficult text. But, it's so gratifying to se it happen. I find that my biggest learning curve in the writing center is learning to ask the questions that will help nudge a student's understanding without actually stealing the "I did it" moment from them. This chapter, and the methods of helping guide a student's mind in a way that bolsters both understanding and confidence, are encouraging.

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