Reading Responses

Throughout the course, you will be responsible for reading from assigned course materials and for turning in reflective responses to the assigned readings. These responses will allow you to revisit the materials you’ve read for class and think about the ways the readings reflect experiences that you have had with using writing in your life. They will also offer you a progressive snapshot of how your thoughts about using writing are developing throughout the course. Responses should incorporate textual evidence from the readings where appropriate to show how your examples reflect an understanding of the content of the readings.

 

Reading Responses are due at the end of Sundays and should be compiled in your class folder either in one running Reading Response document, or in a Reading Responses folder in your “Engagement and Learning” shared folder.

 

Each entry must contain:

• Date submitted and readings covered

• Examples that reflect your understanding of the concepts covered in the reading

• How does this reading confirm or change your understanding of what it means to use writing?

• An effective reading response should be between 1-2 single-spaced pages

 

Here are are a list of questions and statements you might keep in mind when using writing to respond to the class readings for both of the texts we will be referring to most often:

Naming What We Know

As you read the short essays in NWWK, each one describes a writing concept that we think is essential for your success as a college writer and beyond. Each of these concepts will be "troublesome." In other words these concepts challenge you to change the way you think about writing (and as a result, the way you use writing).

For each of the NWWK readings, you will compose a response that achieves the following purposes (choose one or more or craft your own that relate to student SLOs?):

• Using quotes from the reading and examples of writing you have done in the past, explain this concept to seniors at your high school alma mater. They would want to know, in language they understand, how this concept is different from what they currently know / believe about writing. And they will understand your explanation if you connect it to examples of writing that might be relevant for them.

• Explain your reaction to this concept: Is it obvious? Or is it new information? If it's obvious, offer examples from your past experiences with writing to show that you already understood this. If it's not obvious, use examples from your past experiences to show how you had the "opposite" or different understanding of writing.

• Identify the sentence or sentences in the reading that you think best explain the concept. In other words, what part or parts of the reading helped you understand the concept?

• What part or parts of the reading were not clear, and why? How / why did they confuse you?

• What would you believe about writing if the concept were not true or accurate? What kind of writing would you do?

• Using your past experiences with writing (in or out of school) choose examples that you think help you "apply" or illustrate the concept. For example, how was your use of writing in the past an example of not understanding or believing the concept? How would your use of writing in the past have changed or been different if you had understood this concept?

• Considering your ongoing self-assessment as a learner, what would kind of evidence would you need to provide to show that you have passed over this threshold?

• How does this concept change / transform / expand your knowledge about writing, the ways you think about using writing? Offer one or more "before" and "after" examples.

 

Framework for Information Literacy

​Select statements from the list below. Ask students to offer your candid self-assessment of your ability to do these tasks. If you think you can do this, offer an example to demonstrate your competence:​

• Describe the information cycle and explain how, by whom and when information is created.

• Explain the difference between a Google search and a search in a library database.

• Determine the point of view or possible bias in a research source; I can show how sources connect to each other in the conversation.

• Brainstorm several questions I could use for a topic based on the results of my research.

• Explain the differences between types of sources; purpose, audience, genre, currency, credibility;

• Define different ways that someone can be an "authority" on a subject; professional status, subject expertise, special experience, social position.

• I can conduct a search using Quick Search and narrow it to the proper focus to find results for my paper.

• I can change my search as needed to find better or different results, or to fix a search that did not work.

• I can choose sources that are suitable for my research project based on several criteria.

• I know when and how to ask a librarian for help.

• Describe the "conversation" you have discovered with your research;

• Identify the intended audience(s), purpose(s), and genre (of the source)

• Explain why a source is appropriate.

• Explain why you did not select a source.

• Explain how a source contributes to your purpose.

• Explain how the conversation you have discovered relates to your writing (how are you joining this conversation?)

• Explain why you chose or rejected a source based on the authority of the creator.

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Description by Response:

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Reading Response 6 (Due October 21 @ midnight)

Evaluating Online Sources - Watch video and read

Bickmore's "GENRE in the WILD" - "The Genre Does Not Stand Alone: Genre Sets and Systems"

Naming What We Know Threshold Concept 2.1: Writing Represents the World, Events, Ideas, and Feelings

Framework for Information Literacy - Information Creation as a Process

For this response, focus on the Threshold Concept and Evaluating Online Sources, but try to connect them to GENRE in the WILD and the Framework for Information Literacy.

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Reading Response 5 (Due October 7 @ midnight)

Write about three of the Threshold Concepts we've read over the past week

From Naming What We Know

Threshold Concept 1.3: Writing Expresses and Shares Meaning to Be Reconstructed by the 

Threshold Concept 1.5: Writing Mediates Activity

Threshold Concept 1.9: Writing is a Technology through Which Writers Create and Recreate Meanings

Threshold Concept 4.1: Text is an Object Outside of Oneself That Can Be Improved and Developed

Threshold Concept 4.4: Revision is Central to Developing Writing

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Reading Response 4 (Due September 23 @midnight)

Naming What We Know Threshold Concepts:

1.1 Writing is a Knowledge-Making Activity

1.2 Writing Addresses, Invokes, and/or Creates Audiences

1.5 Writing Mediates Activity

2.2 Genres are Enacted by Writers and Readers

Framework for Information Literacy:

“Information Creation as a Process"

Bickmore's Genre in the Wild, Any part of the document

Write about at least two threshold concepts, along with "Information Creation as a Process" and "GENRE in the WILD" - you should be making connections between the ideas in the readings. How do they build on one another? How can you apply them to what we are doing in class? Connect them back to your life. 

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Reading Response 3 (Due September 16 @ midnight)

Naming What We Know Threshold Concept 4.0, 5.0

Framework for Information Literacy:

“Authority is Constructed and Contextual"

"Searching as Strategic Exploration"

"Research as Inquiry"

"Scholarship as a Conversation"

Write about at least one threshold concept and two frameworks - make connections between the ideas in each. Connect them back to your life. Connect them back to the class.

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Reading Response 2 (Due September 9 @ midnight)

Naming What We Know Threshold Concept 2.0, 3.0

Framework for Information Literacy “Information Has Value”

Bickmore's Genre in the Wild, Intro and "What is a Genre"

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Reading Response 1 (Due September 3 @ midnight)

From Naming What We Know, please read:

• Preface: First two paragraphs, pages ix-x

• Last paragraph on page 2, “Threshold concepts are…”

• Metaconcept, pages 15-16

• Threshold Concept 1.0

From Framework for Information Literacy, read the Introduction

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