Since the semester has begun in our writing class, we have been discussing our powers of writing back

to authors, including the editors of our textbook, David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky, who spend the Introduction to Ways of Reading emphasizing the importance of critical reflection on what we read, what we think, and what we write. Weve discussed the ways in which these editors have cast certain types of learning and reading against others: particularly, textbook study and note taking versus what they call strong readings of difficult texts. Paulo Freire continues this opposition of learning types in his essay, The Banking Concept of Education; we have discussed how his opposition of learning through deposits of knowledge versus more exploratory, problem-posing education perhaps overstates (and undervalues at times) the benefits and drawbacks of each. You have constructed readings of what you view as the most key elements of Freires essay; now I ask you to extend those readings to the world around you and your experiences, and therefore I ask you to engage more in the strong reading that Bartholomae and Petrosky encourage you to do Should be about education, not just Freire

For your Unit 1 paper, write an essay that presents a new, more complicated view of education than the one you perhaps held before you began this class. You can focus on any themes you find to be the most important, such as oppression/freedom in U.S. education (you can compare this to other countries) learning new information that you can in turn explore according to your instincts and interests student agency what powers can students have in the learning process in the learning process using styles of study and learning that force you to use different aspects of your mind than you are most accustomed to, in order to see the material in new ways the role of writing in non-writing classes: how writing can help you learn in your majors and other required classes

creating your own problem posing learning situation in courses that generally use the banking model, like the classes that take place in large lecture halls, classes that require a great deal of memorization

Create your own course, in which you are the teacher, that finds a sort of happy medium between the banking model and the problem-posing model

You can use any of these examples, a combination of them, or you can use none of them, and come up with your own organizing themes. If you dont want to use any of these examples, but cannot think of anything else, perhaps use these examples as a catalyst for brainstorming, with a view to finding your own themes. This strategy also applies if you know you have an idea, but cannot put it into words (that means it must be a pretty interesting idea! The most complicated ideas are the hardest to articulate, I find.)

You may use the university library website to help you research anything you think will be helpful, but that you dont know everything about. However, whatever information you use must be cited according to MLA conventions.

You Must use supporting quotations from Paulo Freires essay The Banking Concept of Education, and you may also use supporting quotations from the Introduction to Ways of Reading. When I say supporting, I mean you should use these quotations to support your own points, but you can also use these quotations for against-the-grain readings, in which you write back to the authors. In this case as well, you must use MLA citation.

Your final papers MUST be no fewer than 4 pages long, no more than 6 pages long. Understand that simply stopping at 4 pages will not make a good paper. You must make sure that you have developed all of your points and concluded sufficiently. You want your papers to hold together as unified pieces of writing.

Drafting Schedule: Zero Draft Due Monday September 26, 2011 (Get as much written as you can) First Draft Due Wednesday September 28 (Must be at least 4 pages)

Portfolio Workshop: Thursday September 29 Take-Home Peer Review Due Monday October 3 Third Draft Due Wednesday October 5 Polishing and Portfolio Workshop Thursday October 6 Final Draft and Process Portfolio Due Monday October 10, 2011