Today’s Plan:
- Canvas Issue [5 minutes]
- Modified Think/Pair/Share: Second Article [20 minutes]
- Mueller on Worknets [20 minutes]
Think / Pair / Share / Think / Write
Now that you have read a second article, I’d like you to do a quick TPS. Hopefully, folks in your group have read different articles so you can share a range of perspectives.
First, I’ll give you 90 seconds to think about the second article you read and the reflection you wrote. Summarize an important finding/idea/contrast between the the new article and the first article you summarized.
Second, I’ll have you pair with your group mates and share those ideas.
Third, you’ll think with your group mates on how to frame two important questions regarding the issue at hand.
- Question 1: What is a focused question that these researchers are addressing? (So, for instance, not just a generic “they want to reduce gun violence”–something more concrete and actionable)
- Question 2: What research do we want to do/read to further understand the problem they are addressing?
Fourth, we’ll do a quick share with the class.
Mueller’s Worknets
Let us pay homage to a classic.
For homework, I want you to dive into Mueller’s article “Mapping the Resourcefulness of Sources: A Worknet Pedagogy.” Remember to print out a copy.
Structurally, Mueller’s article is a typical humanities/pedagogy academic article (an article on teaching). It begins by laying out a problem and surveying previous research–focusing on research that is important for his “worknets” approach. In this case, the problem concerns student use of sources–he nods to The Citation Project— and the previous research focuses on Marilyn Cooper’s work on writing ecologies (that writing is always connected to a network of cultural and social forces, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum, a work is a product of a specific social/cultural/economic/political/material/technological moment. Things circulate through, rustle, feed, the ecology). He also points to a few other theorists that follow or echo Cooper’s work: Geoffrey Sirc, Jeff Rice, Bruno Latour.
After the “Opening” section, the next few sections offer more theoretical support for his idea. That is, in order to teach sources in an “ecological way,” we have to have an idea of what ecology means both in general and as it pertains to writing. He begins by explicating Cooper a bit, then turns to Richard Lanham’ notion of “interfaces” to interrogate how current approach to source use are insufficient. His focus, as the section header suggests, is on prepositions.
Mueller writes:
[…]methodical approaches to source use are not so much lockstep processes of search, retrieval, selection, and integration, but rather routes across and beyond particular problems. Simply, methodical approaches to source use can become restrictive too early in an inquiry process if we understand source consultation and use as following too narrow or monolithic a set of procedures. When approaches to research writing tolerate stagnant or unquestioning operations, source integration risks turning into unchecked ritual–a flat but requisite gesture involving finding and slotting excerpts. In general, this is what I wish to avoid in my teaching of research-based writing. My intention is neither to abandon methodical approaches to source use nor to put too deeply in doubt rationalist sensibilities about the functions of sources in researched writing. Rather, worknets as an alternative framework may provide a complementary approach that supports writing conceived and carried out along “wiggyly paths or irregular courses.”
The remainder of the article articulates the four specific “wiggly paths” that comprise Mueller’s worknets: semantic, bibliographic, affinity-based, and choric.
Homework
I offer this layout to give you an inroad into understanding Mueller’s article. Before next Wednesday’s class, I’d like you to read Mueller’s article and post a 400 word summary to Canvas. The summary should:
- What is Mueller’s issue with the way research is taught? What is his issue with Lunsford’s approach (since he points to her famous textbook as an example)?
- Explain what theory grounds Mueller’s approach to worknets–what does he mean by ecology? What’s the deal with prepositions? Why call the four elements of the worknet “wiggly paths”?
- Put the four elements of the worknet–semantic, bibliographic, affinity-based, and choric–into your own words.
- Make sure you conclude by stressing how these four methods fix the problem that you/he articulates in the beginning! How is this different from Lunsford?
