Week 3: Understanding Education Narratives; working on Project 1

  • Dates: Monday, 9/16 and Wednesday, 9/18, 12:00-1:40pm, in Namm 704
  • Meeting Info: Each week, I will post an agenda that will outline the week’s work. It will include instructions for you and links to readings, discussion questions, and other work.  We will work on developing community both in our classroom and in our online written community.  

Objectives

  • To begin drafting Project 1: Education Narrative
  • To analyze and use RLW techniques as we read mentor texts

To Do Before Week 3

Just in case you haven’t already, please:

To-Do This Week

Monday, 9/16:

Texts

Writing

In Class: Education Narratives

  • Focused freewrite: Where do you read? Where do you do your work for school? Where do you learn? What would be ideal?
    • home
    • outside of home
    • park
    • in my room
    • on my bed
    • at a desk
    • living room
    • kitchen
    • public library
    • school library
    • City Tech library (including study rooms)
    • Hunter’s Point Queens Public Library
    • Brooklyn Public Library right near campus
    • school cafeteria
    • bright, quiet space
    • near windows
    • Nice view
    • pretty space
    • alone
    • in groups
    • near other productive people for motivation
    • the subway
    • Metrotech walkway area
    • having my own little office would be ideal
    • having familiar space vs not having your own clutter
    • nice cafe. pretty place (suggestion: Vineapple Cafe)
    • your own time and pace
    • listen to music? maybe without lyrics, less words more tones.
    • props: chew gum, drink coffee, snack
  • Reading and annotating “Maybe I Could Save Myself By Writing” by José Olivarez; “Imposter Syndrome: Stories about not feeling good enough” Part 1 by Sarah Demers and Part 2 by Kevin Smiley (Google Doc version of “Imposter Syndrome” transcript)
    • Read these as writers: what do we notice as we read ?
    • what do we want to do ourselves?
    • what do we connect to or relate to? what seems unfamiliar?
  • Reading/Writing Resource Essay: “Double-Entry Reading Journals” (Butte College).
  • What stands out? what points do we connect to? what questions do we have?
  • What path are we on? What’s something in our lives we would want to write about as representing a moment that got us interested in the path we’re on for school, career, life?
  • What is an education narrative?
    • anecdotes–tell a personal story as an example of their education. might compare to other people, something that helped shape who they are. Catches attention
    • usually the story is from the past
    • what sparked interest in the field
    • method as well as interest
    • use of suspense–how the challenge they faced affected them
    • turning point–how the past informs the present or future
    • use of emotions
    • incremental goals, larger goals
    • ending: some kind of solution, resolution, looking forward, relief, call to action.
    • organization: not necessarily linear, might backtrack, return to topics
  • How are these texts education narrative?
  • Let’s understand genre and genre awareness:
Understanding genre awareness–CAES

Wednesday, 9/18: Education Narratives

Texts:

Writing:

  • Continue putting our readings in dialogue with your ideas for your education narrative in our Connecting to our readings discussion

In Class:

  • Focused freewrite: Noticing: Now that you’ve been at City Tech for 3 weeks, what are you noticing? What patterns are emerging? What have you noticed that surprised you?
    • the elevators
    • long commute
    • different teaching styles
    • less socializing than in high school
    • brightspace emails
    • crowded, chaotic
    • student responsibility
  • For Project 1, you’re writing an education narrative of your own that tells a story about a meaningful learning experience, whether in school or in your life. Your experience might be about a class, a text you read, a space where you like to learn, a mentor who had an impact on you, an accomplishment, a failure, etc. What questions do you have? Start writing in our Pre-writing Education Narratives discussion
  • Reacting and responding to the readings
    • How do these texts fit with the education narrative genre?
    • what else stands out in the texts?
    • what other of our mentor texts do we connect to?
  • Metaphors: What metaphors for education have we encountered? Any new ones this week?
  • Work on Project 1: brainstorm, take notes, freewrite, draft, draft, draft, etc

Photo credit: “Let’s Go!” by Karl Schultz via Flickr under the license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.