Also, like you, I agree with Young in saying that WAC is students using written language to develop and communicate knowledge in every discipline. I don't know if you need a separate program, like Young says, to coordinate amongst all teachers. I think if each teacher focused a little bit of writing into their lesson, the message would come across. I think it would make it harder for teachers if this separate WAC program was created. The whole point of WAC is to incorporate writing into your classroom, is it really the same in you make it a separate program? I think implicating WAC in their individual classroom would be more effective. WAC is writing across the curriculum, therefore, no curriculum would be almost canceling itself out. I believe a curriculum is necessary, but if a science teacher gives a research paper, and a student doesn't site references and has more than a few grammatical and spelling errors, the teacher should consider those mistakes and not grade entirely on the content of the paper. Then the next time around the student would be more cautious of their mistakes. Just that alone would bring WAC into the classroom.
When you ask what does "writing to learn privileges the learner's language and values, and writing to communicate privileges the reader's language and values?" I think Young is saying that when you are writing to learn something you gain knowledge of language and the value of writing, when he says writing to communicate privileges the same thing, either way you are gaining a better idea of language and values. Writing to learn or writing to communicate both together give you a higher learning.
As far a remedial students, I would definitely set up after school help, or maybe a little extra time on a topic in class that they would be having trouble with. I do think diagnosing a writing problem right away is crucial, if it goes unattended, like any problem, it's only going to get worse. Device drills, like Rose says, and maybe some handouts would be a great way to give the student more practice.
When Rose says that to be literate, you need to be acquainted with letters or writings (pg 352), I agree, but disagree. I agree with you when you say it's much more than just knowing letters and reading and writing on their level, but in a way you do need to be at least acquainted with letters to be considered literate. However, being literate is an extremely broad term.
No comments:
Post a Comment