As a follow-up to Roger's and Rob's observations, I thought I would describe three
different types of experiences that I've had orchestrating "real-world" writing
experiences for students in courses I've taught. The first involves a
grant-writing course I teach here at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee which
focuses on writing grant proposals for non-profit organizations. In addition to
our 2 1/2-hour weekly class where we look at the literature, practices, and lore
of grant-proposal writing (and this includes visits from expert grant writers
[grant-seekers] and from a program officer for a foundation [a grant-giver]), each
student works with a local non-profit organization for, on average, two hours a
week (ideally in collaboration with a mentor) to research and produce an actual
grant proposal for a program the organization is seeking funding for.
The second type of experience is an internship class I taught at Purdue for
seniors in our Professional Writing Program. In addition to a weekly seminar,
each student spent 10-20 hours a week in an organization--campus, private-sector,
or non-profit--producing print or electronic documents. The last type of
experience I've had is with organizing "service-learning" placements for students
in Professional Writing courses I've taught at Purdue and UWM. Here I would place
each student (or in some cases a small group of collaborating students) in an
organization--with non-profit organizations being the most frequent hosts--with
the assignment of spending time in the organization to produce a particular
document. (As far as I know, this kind of "service learning" is much more common
in the U.S. than in Canada.)
Based on these experiences, I would certainly agree with Roger and Rob that they
can provide students with "real" rhetorical situation and "game-day" conditions.
But I have a hunch that Russ would agree with this as well.
Graham
[log in to unmask] wrote:
> To take Roger's point further, I've had students produce papers that have won
> competitions for "Best Paper" at a conference -- a conference that combined
> academy and industry as is so often the case in engineering. Is producing an
> academic paper that is useful to people in the solder industry "unreal"?
>
> Or to take another slant entirely, school itself is its own real game. This
> separation of "practice" at school from "real" elsewhere is still not one I
> buy into. This may be because I work in the practical science and the writing
> frequently has straightforward application, but I have trouble seeing the game
> I see around me as "unreal" (unless I look to the university politics!)
>
> Rob Irish
>
> Quoting Roger Graves <[log in to unmask]>:
>
> > Theresa's message inspired me to read the latest Inkshed, wherein I found
> > this quote towards the end of Russ' piece on plagiarism:
> >
> > "It's often argued that people need "practice" and that that's what school
> > provides. Batting practice, fielder's choice practice, bunting and
> > pitching and baserunning practice -- and that school, by definition, can't
> > provide a real game. So school writing is always and invariably stuck in
> > the rhetorical situation I've been describing."
> >
> > The phrase that stopped me was "school, by definition, can't provide a
> > real game." I know schools often do not provide real games, but "can't"?
> > I'm teaching a methods
> > course for secondary education teachers right now, and in the past
> > these students have developed unit plans that they used when they went on
> > to student teach at high schools. In the fall I had students writing grant
> > applications for social service agencies; in the past, some of these have
> > garnered real money, to the tune of $5000 and over $20,000 in one case. Is
> > this practice or a game (pre-season even)? Or does the distinction really
> > rest with each student--they decide how seriously to take it, how real it
> > is going to be for them?
> >
> > Roger Graves
> > Associate Professor
> > Department of English, DePaul University
> >
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> >
>
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--
***************************
Graham Smart
Assistant Professor
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
College of Letters and Science
Department of English
439 Curtin Hall - P.O Box 413
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201
Office phone: (414) 229-2990
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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To leave the list, send a SIGNOFF CASLL command to
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