Today I am thinking about how to create a meaningful writing challenge for my students within the borders of an essentially artificial exercise–the semester exam. For one of the sections of the exam I plan on including a slightly unusual task for a fairly traditional goal–to ask students to demonstrate their understanding of A Raisin […]
Revisiting Hamlet and the Writing Process
[Ten years ago, I was Humanities Chair at Asheville School as we transitioned to a Humanities Department from separate English and History Departments. One of our goals, in addition to incorporating art and music history into our teaching, was to improve our efforts to teach writing across the curriculum. During that first Fall as a […]
Death to the “Arguable” Thesis, Part 2: Before We Believe, Let It Be Up-Side Down
In an earlier post, I called for the death of the arguable thesis (http://jrosspeters.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/death-to-the-arguable-thesis-before-we-argue-lets-believe/). In short, I asserted that we should teach our students to discover a belief before we allow them to worry about whether their claim is arguable. Several of the responses to the piece echoed a similar […]
Death to the “Arguable” Thesis: Before We Argue, Let’s Believe
“Have you come up with a thesis yet?” “No, I haven’t even started. I’ll get to it tonight or early tomorrow morning.” “Yeah, I am great under the gun. I write so much better when the pressure is on!” “I can make up something in time.” […]