Jackson: So again, I think that awareness of rhetorical context, that that's always kind of my my baselines. I don't mean to be repetitive, but I just think that's so important, because I really think that students often don't consider that writing has to be and should be different, in various writing situations, and that your literary analysis is not going to be the same type of writing you do in your scientific report. And so for students to go through that kind of meta process, of thinking about their own writing, I think that is so key at this level, that they are able to transfer those skills. And reminding them that, even though I'm giving them certain ideas in first year writing, that when they go into a history class or a psychology class, expectations maybe a little bit different, and here's how you can kind of transfer the skills that we're learning here to that situation.
And I think and the first year writing classroom, again, sometimes when I give my students different strategies or assignments, they kind of push back, like, I don't really need that. I don't need that. I can do this, I can do this.
And I say, OK, well you very well may be able to do this-- wink, wink, sometimes-- you may be able to do this on your own now, but when you get into your major, and the ideas are different, the content is different, the expectations are different, you might need some tools to pull back on and draw from. And as I try to remind them when I get that push back, and I say, well, maybe you are that fantastic writer, and you may not need it.
But just in case in a couple years you do, you know how to do an outlined. Or, how to do basic research. So I think, though, in terms of the journals, just giving them the opportunity, I think, to adapt more easily when they have to write differently, they've already had some examples and some models. And I think that that can be really helpful for them, too.
Yeah, I mean, of course I think rhetorical context is a really key one. But sometimes it's even just as simple as the topic that I may have them write about. It may be a topic that-- say if it's literature, and we're looking at Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, and there's a lot about abuse-- child abuse, and incest, and those kinds of things. Well, you can talk about that for a literary standpoint, then we can go to the social science chapter, and look at some psychology or sociology surrounding that.
There are a lot of different ways we can do that. So sometimes, just even in terms of topics, I try to find topics that you can kind of look at from multiple ways, and doing it that way. And then again, I think the rhetorical context is just such a baseline for me, that I think that helps them to just really see those connections.