As you’ve probably noticed, you’re submitting all of your work this week through the blog, including the summaries, rather than through Blackboard. That’s by design. Summary is a crucial skill for research writing, so we’re spending a fair bit of time practicing and reflecting on it. You’ve had a chance to receive some private feedback, and now it’s time to open up your audience a bit–this way you’ll have the opportunity to give and to receive feedback from one another.
You can learn a lot by seeing how others summarize the same text as you–what they prioritize, how they define the source, what works well in their approach that might be different from your own.
Moving forward in the course, much of your writing work will be public in this way–on the blog, with your classmates reading and responding. That will provide valuable experience with writing for an authentic audience, which in turn will help you to improve your rhetorical agility. That’s a key aim of this course–to think about the ways in which writing and research are situational, flexing and adapting our work to our distinct purpose, audience, and context.
Now, obviously, this requires a degree of trust, and in a fully online setting where we don’t see one another’s faces and don’t have those same kinds of human interactions that we’re accustomed to in a classroom setting, we will need to work intentionally to build that trust. Trust will make it easier to put our writing out there, to accept constructive feedback, and to offer up our own valuable insights.
Here, I think that our growing knowledge of organizational culture can be a real asset. We know that cultures are built–they don’t just happen–and that they are manifestations of our shared values. I propose that we take a little time this week to reflect on what values we want to be sure we enact in our class community, in this organization that we’re making.
I’ll go first–one of the features of this section that I really value and that I’d like to build on is your openness about the diversity of your backgrounds and experiences. As a group, we represent different generations, different professional fields, different geographical areas, different ethnic and racial groups, and I really appreciate how you’ve been willing to sharing those differences and the unique perspectives you’ve developed as a result. I hope you’ll continue to do so. I think that communicating from where we are–honoring and acknowledging how we are situated–is really important.
Would you please chime in and comment on this post with your thoughts about the culture you’d like to see us build in this online community? What value do you propose we share? What practices do you propose we try to enact? What would you like to see us do/not do/prioritize/avoid?
Hi Prof. Oakes,
One thing that stood out to me in the Coming to Terms chapter in Rewriting is the idea that some writers are thinking through their position on a complex topic by writing about it. Because I don’t have much experience in different organizational cultures to draw from, I think I will be figuring out what I want to say as I read, write, and respond. I think it would be great if we could value the process of discovering and learning and sharing that we will be going through together this summer.
Hi Professor,
I find it extremely interesting that we all have different backgrounds that influence our ideas and opinions. I enjoy hearing about everyone else’s values and what in their lives bring those values out. I like the idea of prioritizing each others opinions and hearing them out before jumping to any sort of conclusion which I think we should definitely be trying to avoid doing.
Hi Professor,
I think that it will be a good thing to put our writing out for everyone to read. I believe that listening to other people’s opinions and constructive feedback is essential in growing as a writer, as you can think about their perspectives. With that being said, you make an important point concerning trust. It takes a lot for a person to be open to listening to people’s comments concerning their writing, especially when you are not in a class setting, or on zoom. I think it will be helpful in the long run, however, because in the end, we only want each other to improve as writers. We are all from different places and have unique experiences, which makes it beneficial for each person to listen to others’ opinions, and be open to change.