Praxis Paper Assignment

for

English 377 / 01 - Peer Tutoring and Composition Theory
Offered Fall Semesters at Shepherd College, Shepherdstown, WV.
Instructor: Karen D. Austin

Each of you has a unique writing process; however, I wrote this assignment sheet in terms of both product and process:

A Description of the Product:

Write a 1 page, single-spaced essay that demonstrates a claim concerning the relationship of your logs, pink sheets, or transcripts (practice) and the class readings (theory), hence the name "praxis paper." The relationship between theory and practice is fraught with tensions--some productive, some destructive, and some indifferent.  Basically, you might find one of the four relationships between theory and practice:

If your paper were about outlining before writing taking the view that theory precedes practice, then you might argue that students should outline before they write, and that composition books can provide useful models to follow when prewriting.  Deductive thinking privileges the general, the abstract, the theoretical, the conceptual.  (The general precedes the specific: all men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal.)  Plato's ideas of forms being primary to lived experience follows this relationship that theory precedes practice.  (The concept of a chair is more true than the physical chair.)  This view would have tutors reading a lot of theory books, consulting grammar books, and sitting at the feet of campus experts in order to learn how to tutor.  This view is Classical.

If your paper were to adopt practice as preceding theory when discussing how to teach people punctuation rules, then your paper might argue that each person has to learn how to use a semicolon in his or her own way, and that tutors have to just try different ways of explaining semicolons until finding the right "fit" for that student.  Inductive thinking privileges the concrete, the embodied, the material, the practical. (The specific precedes the general: five green apples that I ate were sour; therefore, green apples are sour.)  Marx's idea that material conditions control what ideas people accept as truth follows this relationship that practice precedes theory.  (A person's lived experience--the worker's labor or the aristocrat's ease--creates the philosophical system he or she follows.)  This view would have tutors examine their own writing and their own tutoring as well as encouraging them to really observe writing center patrons in order to learn how to tutor. This view is Romantic.

If your paper were to adopt the view that theory and practice refine each other spontaneously, then your paper might argue that teaching MLA documentation style by following models isn't as cut-and-dry as the MLA handout would lead tutors and student writers to believe since no handout or even style book can anticipate every kind of work that needs documentation.  Dialectical thinking balances the influence of theory and practice, showing that both are in constant interaction, revising and correcting each other as they converse back and forth.  Hegel's idea that true thinking follows a progression of thesis, antithesis and synthesis (making a new thesis) follows this relationship that theory and practice refine each other.  (All green apples are sour. Hey, this green apple is sweet. OK, not all green apples are sour; some are sweet. In fact, not all apples can be put into a strict category of sweet and sour. The flavor of apples differ by subtle degrees.)  This view would have tutors learn how to tutor by alternating between reading books, making observations, and writing their own theories, based on a mix of practice and others' theories.  This view is Social Constructionist.

If your paper were to adopt the view that theory and practice have nothing to do with each other, then your paper might argue that the roles that tutor and student writer adopt during a tutorial are subject to infinite possibilities, including some that contradict and some that may never be describable.  Deconstruction (or more broadly, post-structural) thinking emphasizes the fissures, fractures, contradictions, and incompatibilities among theories and practices.  Derrida's writings that encourage readers to look for binaries and then find inconsistencies within those binaries follows this relationship that theory and practice are at odds. (Romeo and Juliet are pure children; Montague and Capulet are tainted adults.  On second look, Romeo and Juliet are tainted; Montague and Capulet are childlike.  The roles of parent-child are reversed and complicated when Romeo and Juliet deceive others to consummate their love and when they take their lives,  causing their parents to be "born again" in the wake of the young lovers' deaths.) This view would have tutors play with theory and practice, keeping an ironic awareness that they may never really learn how to help others how to write better or how to communicate what they do/think to others.  This view is Nameless. (I'll slap on these labels: Chaotic, Ultra Self-Aware, Endlessly Ironic, Saturnalian, Freefalling into an Endless Vortex, Intellectually Hyper Active, Experimental,  Uncommited.)

Quoting Tutoring Documents and The Readings

Account for both theory and practice in your use of evidence. If you are de-emphasizing one, have a reason for doing so. If you argue that both are important, use them both in your paper.

You would do well to quote from your logs, pink sheets, ShepOWL transcripts and the assigned readings in the books or from articles on reserve. You do not (and should not) quote from too many sources. However, make sure that you demonstrate your reason for quoting a certain theorist in conjunction with specific excerpts from your logs. Try to weave a few short, direct quotes into your paper. Be careful not to quote large chunks of text, especially since I can refer to your logs and your readings directly. 

You should name your logs in some way (either straightforward: Log 1, Log 2 or more poetic "Michelle's Struggles." At the top of your logs, provide as much identification information as possible: write your name, your log title, the date of the observation / tutorial, and the name of the tutor and student writer. Number the pages of the logs if they are more than one page long. Cite your logs in the body of your paper and in your Works Cited page.  Create an MLA form for your logs that is analogous to personal communication or an email.  Be thorough and consistent in the way you list your logs on the Works Cited page. 

Also, COPY YOUR LOGS and attach them as an appendix to your paper. You do not need to type them.  Because your paper will have a lot of attached logs, pink sheets, or transcripts, you need to turn your paper in during class by hardcopy not by email attachment.

Some Suggestions for Your Writing Process:

You can find your thesis inductively (moving first from the primary documents--logs, transcripts, pink sheets--then to the readings or to a principle you discovered/invented); or you can find your thesis deductively (moving from a principle in a reading or one that you developed then to evidence of that principle as found in the primary documents).  The process below emphasizes inductive thinking--conclusions found after looking at specific examples.

Step 1. Review your logs in an attempt to analyze them. (By "analyze," I mean to determine the subparts, to unveil the assumptions, to identify the values, to locate the implications, to find the problems, to discover the patterns, to identify contradictions and/or to evaluate worth based on pragmatic or aesthetic criteria.)

Step 2. While analyzing, take some informal notes to track your analysis. In notetaking or an exploratory draft, you can look at several elements before committing to a single focus.

Step 3. Review the articles with an eye toward supporting the pattern you found in your logs, transcripts, and pink sheets.

Step 4. Make a commitment to a main point, even if you don't have the wording of a thesis down yet.

Step 5. Write your draft, pulling together quotes from at least one log and at least one reading. In fact, the better praxis papers will probably pull enough evidence from one log and apply enough insight from one theorist. The more focused, detailed, and tightly argued the better. However, if you find a pattern within two or more logs, pink sheets or transcripts (or a contradiction among them), you can draw details from more than one document.

Steps 6 Revise, edit, proofread, print. Follow the grading criteria.

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