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Showing only entries that have "Ambivalent" selected for "Do you think the custom A Writer's Reference is a useful text to require of all First Year Writing students (ENWR 100, 105, and 106)?" Show all entries

		I have used FROM INQUIRY TO ACADEMIC WRITING (Greene and Lidinsky) and I	I have used MAKING LITERATURE MATTER (Schilb and Clifford) and I:	I have used LITERATURE: THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE(Abcarian, Klotz, and Cohen) and I:	I have used A WRITER'S REFERENCE (Hacker) and I:	Do you think the custom A Writer's Reference is a useful text to require of all First Year Writing students (ENWR 100, 105, and 106)?	Please add details for any text about which you feel strongly, listing its strengths and weaknesses. We are particularly interested to hear why you do not recommend a text or are ambivalent. Please mention the text by name in your response as your answer here is not linked to your answers on the rest of the survey.
8 delete	2011-03-30 16:08:03	recommend it	recommend it		am ambivalent	Ambivalent
16 delete	2011-04-06 10:41:05	don't recommend it			am ambivalent	Ambivalent	I do not recommend FROM INQUIRY TO ACADEMIC WRITING. Actually, I found it very useful and solid in the first part -- the chapters that deal with how to write an essay. The second part, however, has been very disappointing. Many of the readings are outdated, biased and difficult to read (ie poorly written). They don't seem to reflect the breadth of the conversation on current cultural topics as I understand them. I feel I have to significantly adapt the reading list to make it relevant and interesting to my students. For example, the chapter on gender (chapter 15), to me, reflects a point of view that was current circa 1978. The notion that gender is socially constructed is presented as fact in the chapter introduction, when it is certainly debatable. Judith Lorber presents evidence of gender as a social construct in a case study she cites (624-5) which has since been debunked. (The subject of the case study wrote a book contradicting the earlier findings.) Gender relations have evolved, and the conversation has progressed. I wish the chapter reflected some of that -- the greater numbers of women who graduate from college today, etc. The actual conversation is more interesting than the readings reflect.
21 delete	2011-04-11 09:33:16		don't recommend it	am ambivalent	recommend it	Ambivalent
27 delete	2011-04-20 14:05:42	am ambivalent			am ambivalent	Ambivalent	I am ambivalent about Greene. Its strengths are its relatively low price,the very appropriate and useful supplementary material on the texts, and the questions, which are also good at getting into important aspects of a text in concrete ways. There is a large selection of poetry and fiction. The section on fairy tales is popular with students and with some supplementation can produce a good unit. On the other hand, the drama selection is very limited, many of the readings from all genres are old warhorses, and it is enormous. I hate carrying it around. I am ambivalent about A Writer's Reference because I find the Montclair section very useful. Much of the material about writing argument, however, seems geared to information type writing rather than the analytical arguments we try to teach.