Methods of Writing

THE COMPOSITION OF EVERYDAY LIFE

Author: John Mark & John Metz

Books Content: 

Ch. 1Inventing ideas, Ch. 2 Remembering who you were, Ch. Explaining relationships, Ch. 4 Observing, Ch. 5 Analyzing concepts, Ch. 6 Analyzing images, Ch. 7 Making arguments, Ch. 8 Responding to arguments, Ch. 9 Evaluating, Ch. 10 Searching for causes, Ch. 11 Proposing solutions, Ch. 12 Thinking radically, Ch. 13 Researching & writing, Ch. 14 Anthology everyday rhetoric

WHAT YOU FIND IN EVERY CHAPTER: 

In each chapter you can find a point of contactsections that encourages students to slow down in their reading, possible writing topics, and questions or connections to life. In the Analysis section, it helps students develop meaning and significance to their topics filled with dialogic activities. The Public Resonancesections contains writing projects with rhetorical situations that engages students to explore what others believe. TheThesissections contains guides, outlines, examples, and Evolution of a Thesis chart to illustrate gradual development. The Rhetorical Toolssections teaches students that all rhetorical tools can be applied to the writer’s need. The Vitalitysections explains and illustrates strategies to vitalize writing. In the Deliverysections it connects writing to the world, so students can see the relationship between the two. 

WHY I CHOSE THIS TEXTBOOK:

I chose this textbook because it is a guide to writing. As a student, I have writing anxiety and find myself struggling to find ideas on what to write about. As a future teacher, I do not want my students to develop those same writing anxieties. I believe this will be a great resource for teachers to have because it presents readings that connect to culture, family, popular culture, gender and identity, justice, and other topics that students can engage on. Students then can reflect on those readings and think about their own topics, re-think based on values, assumptions, claims of others, and develop new ideas on what they may write about. This book does an amazing job connecting readings and writings to other texts, self, and world. I believe this is so important because as a teacher I want my students to realize the connections they can make. If my students learn to make those connections, they will learn to enjoy writing because it has meaning to their lives or experiences.

TEACHING IDEAS: 

1.    Responding to argument: Students will read “Entitlement Education” and analyze the writing strategies the author uses to support his claim. As well as, the key ideas and resources the author uses to support his claim and response to the original argument. I can use this as an entry task, students will write their thoughts and ideas then pair-share with peer in writing journal. I will then lead a whole class discussion with tiered questioning. 

2.    Remembering who you were: This activity has students bring in an old photograph to class. Students will free write about the photograph, they will write about what they remember about the photo and how they felt in that specific time. The text presents students with questions they can respond to if they feel stuck. I believe this is a great way for students learn about one another, as well as an opportunity for me to learn about them. 

3.    Explaining relationships: Students will read John Steinbeck’s Americans and the Landas an introduction of explaining relationships and activity. In point of contact activity, students will explore and investigate possible ways two entities relate to each other. I would create a graphic organizer for the students with questions they can respond to and think about while they are exploring. In this specific lesson, I will focus on teaching organization strategies. I would use organization strategies presented in book. 

CHALLENGES: 

I believe this is a great resource book for teachers to have because you can grab ideas and make them into lessons, free writes, or fun writing activities. But I do not think a school or myself would use this as a textbook to teach from. I realized this textbook is for college writing instruction, so high school students may find it very boring to read or work from the student textbook. The instructor’s edition presents a lot of information, I assume the student’s edition would be the same and this would be information overload at high school level. I believe specific readings and writings can be used inside an eleventh or twelfth grade classroom because it challenges students. Some challenges that may arise from using these writing strategies may be that students struggle with sharing their writing because it is personal information, or they may feel insecure about their writing skills. 

TAKEAWAY: 

This textbook’s main focus is to make writing instruction go beyond the classroom. It focuses composition experience to student’s everyday life to create meaning. It also provides students with the opportunity to create new connections, radical thinking, and generate a better way of thinking about a topic.