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Chargement... Retention and Resistance: Writing Instruction and Students Who Leave (édition 2014)par Pegeen Reichert Powell (Auteur)
Information sur l'oeuvreRetention and Resistance: Writing Instruction and Students Who Leave par Pegeen Reichert Powell
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"Retention and Resistance combines personal student narratives with a critical analysis of the current approach to retention in colleges and universities, and explores how retention can inform a revision of goals for first-year writing teachers.Retention is a vital issue for institutions, but as these students' stories show, leaving college is often the result of complex and idiosyncratic individual situations that make institutional efforts difficult and ultimately ineffective. An adjustment of institutional and pedagogical objectives is needed to refocus on educating as many students as possible, including those who might leave before graduation.Much of the pedagogy, curricula, and methodologies of composition studies assume students are preparing for further academic study. Retention and Resistance argues for a new kairotic pedagogy that moves toward an emphasis on the present classroom experience and takes students' varied experiences into account. Infusing the discourse of retention with three individual student voices, Powell explores the obligation of faculty to participate in designing an institution that educates all students, no matter where they are in their educational journey or how far that journey will go"-- Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)378.1Social sciences Education Higher education Organization and management; curriculumsClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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While Reichert may be right (and certainly is to some extent), I'm not convinced that the retention problem is as clearly answered as she would like readers to believe. While Reichert makes a compelling case to look "beyond retention," recognizing that current measures of retention do little to take into account for students whose pathway in higher ed is convoluted and even challenging the notion that retention is always bad, her analysis at times pulls up short, and fails to explore what potentially viable retention strategies.
What I mean is this: Reichert deconstructs Tinto's seminal and widely implemented retention theory on the grounds that he places the fault of attrition on students' failure to assimilate into the social and intellectual communities of their schools. She claims that Tinto's model, and its descendants, "attempt to align the individual more thoroughly with the preexisting intellectual and social values of the institution. Nothing is done to change the nature of the institution itself, and this, I argue is where the discourse of retention fails most thoroughly" (pg. 27).
I couldn't agree more with Reichert's assessment of this fundamental error in Tinto's theory. Colleges mobilize numerous resources in attempts help students assimilate; yet these attempts have made little to no difference in retention rates. I fail to understand why, when Reichert has time and again in her book unflinchingly called out her own institution by name, she never offers even an inkling of the types of institutional changes she would advocate for. Perhaps she believes the patterns are too entrenched to allow for the "radical change" (pg. 28) she (and I) believe are necessary. I, for one, would welcome her specific thoughts on the subject. I'd love to ask her to flesh out these sweeping institutional changes she tiptoes around but never really states. I want specifics. She offers none in this work.
If Reichert offers me no particulars about large-scale institutional change, she does share thoughts-a-plenty about how writing teachers should intersect with students who may or may not follow the traditional linear path to degree completion, or who may choose not to complete college at all. Reichert's vision for writing classes is grounded in the rhetorical concept of kairos. In contrast to assuming that learning happens chronologically (that is, as a linear progression of skills learned in sequence) a kairotic approach to writing pedagogy utilizes the particulars of the time and place, the "forces" at play within the students' own particular context to stimulate learning. In the writing classroom starting from kairos, "we begin with writing and reading tasks that are important here and now in the lives of engaged students, workers, citizens" (importantly, NOT a set of standards, or discrete skills that student may or may not need at a later time). Importantly, Reichert notes, "This approach requires a a shift in how we frame our course goals and assignments: It is a matter of understanding our goals and assignments in terms of teaching students to seize the opportunities available to them in the context they are currently in and making sure that context--subject matter and intellectual tasks--fosters their immediate engagement" (pg. 118). I infer from the above quote that Reichert, not knowing where her students will be after they leave her class, is more concerned with helping her students act as writers with meaningful purposes and audiences WHILE THEY ARE WITH HER, than in attempting to foster a set of skills which the research has shown likely doesn't transfer "across the curriculum" or into new writing contexts anyway.
Because the educational pathway is often not a linear one, Reichert, advocates critical engagement in the present, so that whether or not students who leave, return to college, writing will have served them in meaningful ways.
I'm still digesting this dense book, filled with what one colleague terms "POMO" (Postmodern) discourse, but I am very much intrigued by how incorporating kairos into my class would actually play out. To be fair, Reichtert is not advocating the abandonment of chronos in writing pedagogy, merely drawing attention to how kairos can serve students.
Because I'm young(ish) and new to the world of teaching in higher ed, I'm not convinced that the retention discussion needs to be put to rest in the way that I infer Reichert would like it to be. In a problem that is so multifaceted, I still believe that institutional changes which make the college environ less hostile to diverse learners could make a difference. I say this while completely agreeing with Reichert that many of the factors influencing retention (finances, familial instability) are completely out of my control. Unlike her though, I still feel the need to not only engage my students where they are at, but to see what sort of institutional give I can foster in order to nudge students to stay. That being said, Reichert's work encouraged me to re-envision the retention conversation, and I have no doubt I will return to it again and again as I undertake my own investigation of the retention issue through implementing a (hopefully) culturally-relevant, workshop approach that I believe Reichert herself might approve of. :) ( )