Portfolio 2: Goals
Goals of Portfolio 2 include our desire to:
- Continue
to develop student awareness of texts as ongoing conversations on issues
of importance and relevance to themselves and the world
- Continue
to develop engagement in the world of both problems and ideas through
reading of a major national newspaper and to reassure students of their
ability--and indeed their responsibility as adult citizens--to participate
in the development of ideas and actions that contribute to improvements
and solutions
- Continue
to develop student awareness of texts as products of particular purposes,
audiences, and contexts (rhetorical situations) and develop student
ability to read such texts critically
- Introduce
students to the idea that positions on issues are tied to the values,
beliefs, attitudes, and affiliations of the people who hold them. Texts
are but one outward manifestation of those commitments and associations.
- Work
in a focused way on developing student accountability to ongoing
conversations by encouraging them to read widely on issues of interest and
importance to them, developing their own positions based on knowledge of
the ongoing conversation and critical reading of the participant arguments
rather than on uninformed and unchallenged opinions
- Enlarge
the principles of objective, academic summary of texts to thorough
analysis of their contexts, purposes, attitudes and associations.
- Continue
to teach students how to focus, develop, and deeply revise their essays
for educated audiences
- Continue
to teach students how to make choices about the content and development of
their writing based on context
- Continue
to teach students how to incorporate knowledge gained from other sources
(text evidence) into the development of their claims and reasons as well
as how to use academic citation methods for such purposes