Let's Give 'em Something to Talk About...

This week's readings, although they were both somewhat different than the previous readings we have done in the semester, brought up some interesting ideas that I had not exactly thought about before. First, the idea of discourse communities is an excellent way to describe the different ideas that come between teacher and student. Getting students to talk about how they talk in different atmospheres would allow them to begin thinking how academia is different that their normal everyday, but that they also can be a part of a new community of education. I will admit that this sounds very idealistic, but I do think that it is something that modern students will understand because society is so much about interacting with lots of kinds of people simultaneously these days. Furthermore, it would be helpful to see this as not trying to change the kids or have them morph into a “nerdy” student when they walk into class, but just switching gears to a different part of themselves when they are in this setting. The emphasis would not be to change them, but to add to their discourses they already have like Harris says.

            Windsor also offers good ideas on how text can be used in different ways to accomplish different goals. I myself have always made list after list and notes in the sides of margins, to prompt myself either to look something up later for my own interest, or a thought that occurs from what I am hearing that I want to think more about later, or just something that pops into my brain that is not related at all. This texts, or “idea bombs” can be very important for my own benefit, but they also can result as value for a bigger group or stimulus for later to jog people’s memory.  While Windsor did mean notes and lists as more helpful for a group function, I think this version or type of text could be utilized well in a classroom to get the students thinking in a different (and easier) way. Perhaps instead of asking them to write a paragraph on what they did this summer, ask them to write a bullet point list of what they did instead. I would bet bottom dollar that a teacher would receive more than two or three lines and more information/details from every student because of the different format.