Writing What We Teach

For the writing what we teach assignment, I chose to analyze MLK Jr's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" because I knew that my students would be reading it when we worked on the position paper and would therefore be familiar with the text when we came to the textual analysis unit.

I focused on King's appeal to audience in my textual analysis, so during the position paper unit, after I had taught the concepts of pathos, ethos, and logos, I broke the class into three groups and asked each group to look for their assigned classical appeals in King's essay. The next class period we analyzed the text, each group listing textual examples and explaining how King made use of appeals. I felt that having the unknowingly do a textual analysis as a class before we began the textual analysis unit would help them understand the process later.

On the second day of the textual analysis unit, after I had gone through the "basics" of textual analysis the class period before, I explained that what we had done with "Letter from Birmingham Jail" was an example of textual analysis. I then showed them the portion of my drafting process in which I had made bulleted lists of textual support for pathos, ethos, and logos in King's essay, explaining that they had done the same thing a few weeks ago. I then passed out a copy of my final draft as a sample paper for them and gave them a peer review type sheet and had them analyze the essay. When they were done, we discussed as a class the judgment, criteria, textual support, and analysis in my sample.

I'm not sure how incredibly well the assignment went over. While I think the activity I did in the position paper unit was really good, I feel that they were bored with the worksheet. I think that a student sample would have been better because my analysis was a bit more complex than perhaps they are ready to do.

In the future, I would consider trying this assignment again, but I may try to make my textual analysis a little more "basic." Or perhaps I would just use an overhead transparency to explain my process and then point out the judgment, criteria, etc. Also, I would probably do a "writing what we teach" type of activity earlier in the term (as most did with their textual analysis) when I was still focusing on revision. At this point in the semester, I feel as though I've already covered revision pretty heavily.

All in all, I think the Writing What We Teach Assignment was beneficial because it enabled my to empathize with my students and to clarify a workable process to suggest to them in doing their own textual analysis.