Communicating With Text As A Teaching Strategy To Write A Preliminary Lterature Review

Communicating with Text as a Teaching Strategy to Write a Preliminary Literature Review1 Wuri Soedjatmiko Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya, Indonesia Abstract This paper deals with a teaching strategy to write a preliminary literature review using Communicating with Text, that is students have to argue on issues or position they have obtained from critically reading an assigned text. The teacher guides them by employing leading questions where the answers could be found in the text or beyond the text. To find the answers beyond the text, they have to browse the internet. Communicating with Text is an integrated process of writing-while-reading and reading-whilewriting. Teaching students using this strategy means that given a text, students learn to “listen” to the message of the author of the text, and use higher order of thinking tools to “argue” with the author by writing their response in an essay. In the first step, students learn the skill to independently get information and images from search engines, online encyclopedia, and online dictionary and thesaurus. In the second step, they read a cultural text (fiction or non-fiction) facilitated by the teacher’s leading questions. During the reading, they dig out the implicit and explicit meanings of the text by group discussions and browsing the internet for deeper information. The last step is the individual free writing, posting the drafts to be commented, revising and editing it for the final work. 1

Presented at the 42nd RELC International Seminar 23-25 April 2007

A classroom action research is implemented to reflect the process of the Communicating with Text as a strategy to teach Argumentative Writing.

INTRODUCTION In teaching research methodology to undergraduate students, I learned that the most difficult skill to transfer was the ability to review the related literature. Reading the proposal submitted as the final project, I always complained about the literature review that was more like a list of citations or a clipping of summaries. One possible reason for this unskilled writing was the “immature” reading and writing. Their reading did not go beyond the level of surface information. They were not used to reading critically to enable them to write down their position about the topic. I have been teaching writing for more than twenty years. However, I could never see how my teaching strategies help students improve their writing because I do not have the same students in the next writing class. The computer-based class registration gives students to freely choose the class, whether or not to join the class of their previous teacher. Or, if they want to, they might not get the class due to limited class size; as soon as it reaches the maximum limit, the class is closed, or if the writing class happens to be in the same hour with another subject students automatically enter the available class offered. . From my previous studies2, I learned that writing using a mailing list enabled students to read and learn from peer’s works and comments, and improved by studying their peers 2

“Teaching Writing Using Electronic Portfolio through a Mailing List” presented at RELC Iternational Seminar 2004

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successes and failures in writing. I was also aware of the benefits of reflective journals. They could reread their journeys of learning writing and it helped them reflect their problems. Unfortunately, from semester to semester I had to face students who hardly read outside class. This was one of their main weaknesses since writing required ideas and ideas came among others from reading. This condition inspired me to integrate writing and critical reading, and the purpose of the study is to see through action research whether the activities done in the critical reading enabled them to adopt the communication occurring in critical reading into their writing process. Similar to speaking and listening, reading and writing are intertwined skills. In a normal situation, while speaking, a person tries to convey a message to another person who listens and then responds, and the speaker listens again to the response. In writing, the writer says something to a distant reader, and readers—“listen” to understand the writer’s message. A metaphorical description of the togetherness of reading and writing was given by Gary R. Cobine 3 “Reading and writing exist only in relation to each other. Writing is to reading as waking is to sleeping, as giving is to receiving. The one act presupposes the other act. Together, the two acts are one act, and yet each remains a separate act, at the same time. Literally, to write and read, we must give and receive.”

SITUATION 3

Cobine, Gary R., Writing as a Response to Reading. ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading (June 1995)

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This classroom action research studied one of the four argumentative writing classes of the English teacher-training department of Widya Mandala Catholic University, Surabaya. My class consisted of 21 students. Twelve of them had their last semester GPA between 3.00 to 3.57, and the other nine from 2.00 to 2.82. Their previous semester writing grades were mostly good with only six of them having between 2.00 and 2.50. The other 16 students had from 3.00 to 4.00 on a scale of 0 – 4.00. Like most English teacher training departments, language skills at my English department are taught in several sequential semesters. So is it with writing. Starting the second semester, narration and description belong to Writing 1, continued by Writing 2 (expository) and Writing 3 (argumentative). Academic writing is considered the highest level. The problem lies in the disintegration among the genres, especially the academic writing. Giving emphasis to one particular genre at a time might be easy for the sake of teaching, but it is not natural. In the real situation, there are no such chunks as narration without any description or explanation. The genres are blended in accordance with the presentation of the content. Another change of paradigm in the teaching of writing is that writing is a process, not just a product. Students get ideas to write among others from readings and to understand the message they have to listen to what the author is communicating with the text. When writing, they do not write for an unidentified audience. At least the audiences are the teacher and their peers.

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Real writers have target audience in mind. Writing for children is different from writing for adults, and writing for academician uses different approach from writing for the laity. Brown and Brown (2004) stated that writing-while-reading was what students and teacher usually did. On the other hand, reading-while-writing was less done, ignored, or not realized. “Clearly in the paper world when one is writing a document one sometimes pauses to read a second document, and possibly copy a piece of this second document as a quotation, or include it as a reference.”4 I, therefore, was interested to see whether communication process of writing and reading might be the answer. FOCUS The idea of “Communicating with Text” came from my previous class when I used Brent Staples’, “Back when Skin Color Was Destiny – Unless You Passed White” (New York Times 7 September 2003). At that time my students complained that the text was difficult. I, then, urged them to gain information as much as possible through browsing the internet. They had to know not only about who Brent Staple was, but also about Anatole Broyard and Philip Roth--his novel, “Human Stain”, his attitudes toward Afro-Americans, about “passing white” and how Blacks thought about those who passed into white. The result was satisfying, and I called the strategy, “Communicating with Text.” 4

P. J. Brown and Heather Brown. Integrating Reading and Writing of Documents. Journal of Digital Information, Volume 5 Issue 1 Article No. 237, 200402-03

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While doing the study, I read Brown and Brown, “Integrating Reading and Writing of Document.” They promoted the integration of writing-while-reading and reading-whilewriting, which referred to “Communicating with Text” where students obtained ideas from “listening” to the message of the author (of the text), and used higher order of thinking tools to “argue” with the author and wrote their response in an essay. The teaching design of “communicating with text” combined critical reading and writing as an integrated activity to produce a response-essay. The objectives included three competences: the hard skill competence (the argumentative writing), the conceptual skill competence (the critical reading competence), and the soft skill competence (email, mailing list, browsing web, browsing images, team working, peer commenting) The question was whether ‘Communicating with Text’ strategy enabled students to write a response-essay. The next question was whether the strategy could link a continuous improvement of the teaching of writing to approach the skills of writing academically as a preliminary literature review. The study was focused on the communication with text done in argumentative writing which was offered at the time of the study. It was a two-credit course and the class meeting was 100 minutes a week. The meeting frequency was not promising, but fortunately, the online writing using a mailing list gave much more advantages where students got responses twice or three times more quickly than the paperand-pen writing class.

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The Literature Critical reading and writing Reading and writing are seldom taught as an integrated subject. Some writing teachers use the reading-to-write strategy where reading is a springboard to writing, and the reading is used to get ideas for writing. The reading teachers who give assignments to write usually ask their students to write a summary or a précis as a check for students’ understanding. As a matter of fact, people who read do not limit themselves to understanding the written text, but also wire their imagination to build their own text. Before they come to the ability to develop their own text, they go deeper to the hidden information which belongs to the critical reading. Critical reading is beyond skimming and scanning, going deeper towards the hidden intended message 5. In the present era, critical reading is made more possible by the support of the internet. Readers must know the biography and tendencies of the author, the situation and condition of the society and time or period told by the text. Critical writing could be seen from two sides. On one side, it refers to writing using higher order thinking tools. On the other side, writing can be a mechanism to think critically. Both are integrated in the activity of critical writing. When writing, students think about a thesis statement or theme stated in the introductory paragraph. The thesis statement must then be developed into aligned paragraphs 5

http://www.csuohio.edu/writingcenter/ critread.html).

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where each consists of one idea (topic) alone. The paragraph development can use examples, definitions, compare and contrast, process, or argumentation. The closing part must be in line with the introduction. These are the tools of logical thinking. Argumentative writing In teaching writing, the process could be one paragraph writing which actually is more or less the introductory paragraph of an essay, and the five-paragraph template where the second, third and fourth paragraphs are the development of the theme, or essay writing not using any traditional teaching template of writing. In the undergraduate English department of Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya, the process is divided into three chunks of three semesters. The first consists of narration and description; the next semester expository (process, illustration, classification, definition) and the last is argumentative writing. Persuasion is considered a part of argumentative writing. However, in my class, I did not use the so-called five-paragraph template. I asked students to free-write their ideas. Argumentation is writing that takes an issue or position, and the writer defends the issue or position using argumentative tools, such as convincing evidence, facts, experts’ statements, or strong personal experience. Another strategy is by elaborating the other side of the issue or position (contra argument), which is then refuted using the above argumentative tools. “Communicating with Text” in this argumentative class refers to arguing on the issues or position students obtained from critically reading an assigned text. Students were assisted by the teacher’s leading questions, of which the answers might be in or beyond the text. The latter required

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some browsing activities of internet sources. The interpretation of their readings was followed by students’ agreement or disagreement supported by the argumentative tools. “Communicating with text” was an integrated process between what Brown and Brown mentioned as writing-while reading and reading-while-writing. Free-writing, revision and editing The process of writing consisted of several activities. After reading a text, students started to jot down their argumentative ideas in free writing. Two stages of revision were done through peer’s feedback and the teacher’s. The last stage was editing. Revision was differentiated from editing. Ede (2001) stated that revision could be interpreted as re-vision or seeing again. Editing was more on correcting grammar, organization and spelling mistakes. Free-writing usually refers to five or ten minutes writing without stopping for correction. Free-writing in this study was also writing without checking for grammar or spelling mistakes, but the content was focused on commenting towards the reading text they had read: whether they agreed or disagreed and developed it using their own words. RESPONSE The design used was classroom action research. The subjects were 21 fourth semester students of the English Department, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Widya Mandala Catholic University learning argumentative writing using “Communicating with Text” as the strategy to teach argumentative writing.

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The teaching and learning design Before the class started, I prepared the mailing list [email protected] and three polls concerning (1) the use of internet, (2) critical reading, and (3) the process of writing. Two reading texts “Sex in the syllabus,”6 and “How We Make Life-and-Death Decisions.”7 and all other materials were put in the file menu of the mailing list. The first session was used for community building: introducing oneself, grouping students, teaching them to create an email address and join the mailing list provided. They were also trained to browse using search engines such as, www.google.com and www.yahoo.com. They were also introduced to the biggest encyclopedia online at www.wikipedia.com besides using the rich features of Microsoft Word in the Tool Menu. The class took place in the Multimedia Laboratory where each student had access to the internet. In the next session, they read the first text and discussed it in their permanent group. Since the text was not easy, they were facilitated with several leading questions. During the reading, they dig out the implicit and explicit meanings of the text by group discussions and browsing the internet for deeper meaning of the “unsaid”. 6

Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, “Sex in the syllabus.” http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,11769763,00.html 7 Robert Wright, “How We Make Life-and-Death Decisions.” Time. Thursday, Jan. 18, 2007 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580372,00.ht ml

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Different from the other classes, I intentionally did not begin with theoretical explanation about how to write an argumentation, but used example texts. The purpose was to let them discover the pattern creatively. When it did not happen, at the fifth meeting, I explained the elements of an argumentative essay, and practice it while reading an example of a short essay. While reading the text, students were required to ‘listen to the author and the message.’ Further, they were asked to agree or disagree with the message of the text, and stated their standpoint. Then, they had to develop their standpoint individually through free writing, i.e., write as much as possible without correcting grammar and spelling mistakes. Revisions were done twice. The first was after they got online comments from peers, and the second was after they read my online comments and classroom discussions on the strengths and weaknesses in general. The research design Classroom Action Research is a teacher research. The subjects were 21 students whose learning pattern, writing ability and probably intelligence, were very heterogeneous. Their previous semester’s GPA varied from 1.6 to 3.57, and their previous writing scores from 2.00 to 4.00.8 The teaching was done in the multimedia laboratory with 24 internetconnected computers. Normally the connection was acceptable, but in the morning occasionally, the connection failed so that students had to write using the Microsoft Word and post it when the connection was on again. In this study, I experimented with critical reading to support argumentative writing, asking students to “listen” to the 8

Appendix B: Students Record

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explicit and implicit messages. The data were collected by observing the class while students were building the community, posting emails, opening files, and filling the online pools. Data also came from students’ reflective journals (and my own notes) and their writing inside and outside class. The data, then, were analyzed to answer whether students obtained the three skills stated in the objectives: the soft skill, the conceptual skill (critical reading) and the hard skill (the argumentative writing). An online interview was applied to clarify unclear reflections at the end of the study. OUTCOME The Soft Skills The soft skills covered in this study were the use of emails and mailing list, the internet browsing, group working and reflective journal writing. These skills were introduced in the first meeting. Concerning the email addresses, only one out of 21 students did not have an email address before the class started. She created her email address during the first meeting and all joined the mailing list at that time. From their answer to the poll, I knew that only four claimed to open their mail box every day, and others said they opened it when they had to do an assignment. Concerning browsing, 17 out of 21 admitted the importance of the internet for their study. Although they found the internet useful, seven said that they did not like using it because the internet on campus was slow and it cost them some money to go to the warnet (warung internet or internet café). From my observation during class activities, students did not have any problems with posting their works,

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browsing the internet and opening files uploaded in the mailing list. The only problem encountered was usually the internet connection. If this happened, students used the Microsoft Word, saved it, and sent it when the internet was on again. Some saved it in their flash or floppy disk. Another soft skill was team working. It did not create any problem since they were accustomed to working in teams. I even observed that students were more comfortable to discuss things with friends compared to launching questions openly. Some reasons were either they felt safer to get informal explanation, or they could get clarification in their first language. Actually, I’m bit misunderstood (I’m confused with) today’s explanation about peer review. Maybe it’s because I’m not used to correct someone’s mistakes. I don’t understand the thesis part, and I can’t differentiate whether it is good or bad. After that, I told Mega my problem. She tried to explain the whole things and it is very helpful. Then I began to revise(review) Vivi’s work. I realize some mistakes there, but I don’t know whether it (my comment) is right or not. (3rd journal of Student #19)9: The reflective journals were supposed to be posted after the meeting, but could be submitted at the latest two days before the next meeting. I intentionally gave them guided questions to reflect on, although not all of them were answered. Students tended to reflect on what they needed to speak up. In the example below, Student #14 did not answer four of the five questions. Instead, she wrote about her progress due to the feedback or review from her friend (question 5). However, this 9

Explanations between brackets were mine.

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was better than without leading questions. From my previous experience, without the questions to focus on, students would write more like a diary telling about other things, such as their private matters or things concerning other classes. Example of the leading questions and student journal: The content of the journal must include answers to the following questions: 1) Do you really understand what you are supposed to do in giving comments to your peer? 2) If you do not understand, which part is confusing? 3) After discussing with your friends, do you solve this problem? 4) Does giving comments to your friend's work help you understand ALSO in writing your own writing? 5) Are you satisfied with your friend's comment? Why? Reflective Journal of Student #14 Today is my 4th meeting in writing class. After I got the comments from my friends, now I know my mistakes. The comments from my friends (are) helpful. At first I really don't have any idea how to revise my free writing because I think my free writing is correct and I find difficulties in changing my mind. So that's why I mixed up sex education, porn sites, cyber sex, and soon after Bu Wuri showed the mistakes that I did, I understood and I could revise it easily. Then, I read and read “the Trolley Problem”, I understand the passage. I know the content of the passage. but I can't choose those two options. It's really hard for me. and I don't have any solution for it. I (am) really confused in writing the essay. I really can’t choose it.

The conceptual skills

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I observed that hardly any students read the assigned texts as a preparation before class meeting. Therefore, critical reading was considered tough. Reading their free writing, I knew that more than half of the class did not get the message correctly. Following Brown and Brown’s reading-whilewriting, I gave them exercises.10 As a part of their revision process, they reread the text and while reading it, they filled in who belonged to which group. Student wrote in the reflective journals that critical reading was really hard for them. “By the time I started to read the second article(Sex in the Syllabus) I got a heavy headache. I understood nothing from the text,” wrote Student #511. When interviewed, she said that she was not accustomed to reading authentic texts with controversial topics. However, her confusion melted after working out the leading questions in her group and doing the exercises to communicate with the reading text. Another strategy I used to make students acquire the conceptual skill was by asking them to read the text gradually. The first part was the first six paragraphs, leaving out the discussions on the other studies on the topic. In responding to the text, they were required to read the original or full text. Unfortunately, only five read the entire text. From 1712 students who posted their 7th reflective journal, seven13 admitted they acquired the conceptual skill or critical reading competence through their relentless efforts in 10

Appendix A: Exercises on Understanding Text #1 Student #5 was supposed to be the best student with her previous semester GPA of 3.57 and her writing score 4/A. 12 Two students did not mention about their understanding of the texts, and two did not write their journals. 13 They are students nos. 12, 7, 17, 19, 11, 10, and 1 11

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rereading the texts while they were writing. Two14 others said they needed more time, and the rest complained that the texts were too difficult for them, that they did not like the texts, or they did not concentrate while reading. I also observed students’ critical reading competence from their writings. In responding to the first text (Sex in the Syllabus), eleven15 got the correct idea. From their response to the second text (How We Make Life-and-Death Decisions), only eight16 out of 21 writings proved their clear understanding of the text. Student no. 1 who admitted to improve his understanding of the text did not show it in his free writing or his revisions. The second text might be too difficult because it was presented using hypothetical cases, albeit it was much shorter than the first. I was also aware that I should not have asked them to read gradually by cutting the text into two stages of reading. What they needed was an integrated understanding of the whole text, and students who did not continue reading the second half could not improve their understanding.

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Students nos. 18 and 13 Student nos. 5,12, 7, 8, 17, 19, 11, 10, 15, 13, 21. 16 Student nos. 5, 12, 8, 17, 10, 6, 18, 15. 15

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Strategies to obtain understanding of the text (Journal) Student

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Reading while Writing Learning from Group Learning from Example Need more time Texts too Difficult

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= The student acquired critical reading competence. ∙= The student has not acquired critical reading competence

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Student no. 1 who admitted to improve his understanding of the text did not show it in his free writing or his revisions. The second text might be too difficult because it was presented using hypothetical cases, albeit it was much shorter than the first. I was also aware that I should not have asked them to read gradually by cutting the text into two stages of reading. What they needed was an integrated understanding of the whole text, and students who did not continue reading the second half could not improve their understanding. The Hard Skill The hard skill in this study referred to the competence to write an argumentative essay as a response to the text they had read. Free Writing The free writing, which was supposed to be done in five to ten minutes, was done longer. Instead, this could be called the first draft of students’ writing. The length of their response writing to the first text (Sex in the Syllabus) varied from a very short paragraph up to five-paragraph essays. Eleven students posted one-paragraph writing, and others wrote between three to five developed paragraphs. The free writing responding to the second text (How We Make Life-and-Death Decisions) consisted of five oneparagraph writings and sixteen ranging from two paragraph to two-page essay. The first free-writing and peer review did not give satisfactory results. The class was really heterogeneous. Since the students previous semester GPA varied from 1.6 to

3.57, and their previous writing score also scattered from 2.00 to 4.00, the peer review tasks were predictably not favorable. Peer review Peer review was supposed to give feedback to their friends. When assigning who should review whom, I did not consider their writing ability, nor their previous semester GPA. In general, they admitted the benefits they obtained from peer reviews; they realized their mistakes after reading their friends’ comments—and most probably, after reading their friends’ writing, too. However, there were also unexpected results. Student #12 who was the second upper of the group confessed that she was confused, “When we were asked to give comment to our friend, I found some difficulties. Leony’s writing was so short that I couldn’t give vary (various) comments.” (3rd journal) I also observed strange comments on an unsatisfactory draft:  Your writing is good enough  Thesis statement is clear.  don’t forget to make a conclusion longer.  but your writing is really strong  keep trying and don’t forget to give some example However, I appreciated that students normally stated their feedback positively. The following is an example of a comment given to a writing using deviated logic.

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Free writing of Student #2 Someday, if I drive my trolley very fast and I can't handle and control, but there (were) two alternatives for me to choose which one between one people (person) or five people. I would choose the second option because hitting them is totally mistake. I will hit all of the people of five. because the same thing will happen whether I hit five or just one. The judge will give me a heavy punishment. of course, I will feel guilty. Actually I never want to kill somebody, whoever. Especially the people who I hate. God will give me a punishment too. If I hit or kill somebody, I will never forgive myself. Now, I can drive a car, Before I decide to do something, I have to consider the bad and good effects. I always try to control my speed in other (order) that I won't hit or kill. I don't want to make a problem that can give a bad effect for my family and especially for myself. I will do the good things, not bad things. I will be carefully when I drive my car. Student # 6 commenting on Student #2’s writing: I don't know which sentence your thesis statement is. I appreciate your way of thinking and I think it's a very unique way but if those people were your family, would you still have enough heart to hit them all? There are some contrary sentence in your writing. You said that you will never forgive yourself if you kill or hit somebody, but you also said that you prefer to hit all the five people if you were in such kind of situation.

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Revision The first revision, after they received comments from friends, developed a lot. However, 11 out of 15 who filled up the poll (73%) said they revised by responding to their friends’ feedback. Student #9 did not develop her writing and added a few sentences more to her one-paragraph writing. The second revision was done after students got my comments. All students admitted they benefited very much from teacher’s feedback. This was not a compliment since it proved students’ overdependence. I sometimes discussed three or four students’ works as examples for the others to work on their own. Protests then came; they said they could not revise their work because there were no comments given. Data from the poll showed that 67% of the students made use of teacher’s comment to revise their work. Citation as support The second free-writing was extraordinary. One student submitted an outstanding writing by quoting the main point of the original text. This was fascinating.17 Another four18 students also used citation to support their writing. Argumentation Responding to Text 1 (Sex in the Syllabus), only four19 did not identify their standpoint. However, their standpoint was not developed into strong argumentation. The second text was more difficult since it contained hypothetical case. Only nine showed what could be considered as standpoints. Again these were not developed argumentatively. 17

Appendix C: 2nd free writing of Student #12 Student nos. 10, 13, 14 and 18. 19 Student nos. 19,10, 13 and 18. 18

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Students responding to texts Student 1

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Notes: √ = Student’s writing has a standpoint ∙ = Student’s writing without standpoint

REFLECTION I started my study by questioning whether my students could achieve the three goals: the soft skill competence, the conceptual skill competence and the hard skill competence. Using the first text (Sex in the Syllabus), 81% could write down their standpoint. However, their argumentative development was still weak. The second text (How We Make Life-and-Death Decisions) was too difficult for them and therefore only 38% could show their standpoint. Further, students started to use citations, facts, and experience to enrich their writing, which was a good point for their future task in thesis writing. Looking back towards the goals of “Communicating with Text”, I concluded improvements occurred in the process of writing. Some highly motivated students were willing to effortlessly do the reading-while-writing and therefore gained the conceptual skill needed to respond to the text. There was no guarantee that the upper group gained better than the lower group. It was a matter of motivation and how to keep their motivation high. Less motivated or less skilled readers and writers could be invited to read and write critically by providing less complicated texts. Learning styles also influenced the achievement of the goals. There were students who preferred to study using examples, and others to discuss with friends. Therefore, opportunities for working together in groups might be an alternative. Concerning the mailing list, all students enjoyed writing using mailing list. Most of them submitted their assignments and journals on time. The mailing list made them a community by itself. When giving feedback, they did their best to encourage their friends.

Doing classroom action research also taught me to reflect on my teaching technique, preparation and choice of materials. It gave me a valuable experience to continually improve my teaching, my students’ learning, and myself. This encouraged me to continue the action research using authentic and controversial issues, but less difficult writing style. Reference: Brandon, Lee.2001. Paragraphs and Essays: A worktext with readings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. Brown J.P. and Brown, H. Integrating Reading and Writing of Document. Journal of Digital Information. Article no. 237, Volume 5 Issue 1.(2004-02-03). Available at http.://jodi.tamu.edu/Articles/v05/i01/Brown/ Retrieved on 9 February 2007. Critical Reading: What is Critical Reading, and why do I need to do it? Available at http://www.csuohio.edu/writingcenter/critread.html Retrieved on January 15, 2004 Developing Critical Thinking Through Writing: A Brief Explanation Available at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/index.shtml Retrieved on January 23, 2005 Ede, Lisa. 2001. Work in Progress: A Guide to Academic Writing and Revising. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s

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Plonsky, M. PSYCHOLOGY WITH STYLE, A Hypertext Writing Guide(for the 5th edition of the APA Manual) Available at http://www.uwsp.edu/psych/apa4b.htm Retrieved on 8 August 2005. Simpson, A. A Process Approach to Writing by Adam Simpson Available at www.developingteachers.com. Retrieved on September 19, 2004 Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, “Sex In The Syllabus,” available At http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1 176976-3,00.html Wright, Robert, “How We Make Life-and-Death Decisions.” Available at ttp://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,15 80372,00.html

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Appendix A: Exercise on Understanding Text #1 1. What is pornography? 2. Colleges are getting serious about porn studies, but should professors show or just tell? ”Sex in the Syllabus” by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen Agree to teaching porn by showing it

Agree to teaching porn by telling it

Disagree to teaching porn

SUNY Buffalo

at Paul Abramson, Marvin UCLA Schwartz, parent

UCLA Berkeley

at Catherine Constance SherwoodPenley, UCLA Puzello, Indiana Santa Barbara University, Bloomington

Jay Clarkson, A state politician University of threatened to Iowa draw funding Linda Williams at Berkeley Alex Halavais at SUNY

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Laura Kipnis of Northwestern University Lindsey 21

Reich,

David Penniman, Dean at SUNY

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Appendix B: Students Record Student Code

Writing 2 Scores

3rd Semester GPA

S #5

4.0

3.57

S #12

4.0

3.46

S #7

3.5

3.44

S #20

3.0

3.28

S #8

4.0

3.22

S #17

3.0

3.22

S #19

3.5

3.19

S #16

3.5

3.18

S #11

4.0

3.14

S #10

3.5

3.13

S #6

3.5

3.09

S #9

3.0

3.00

S #14

3.0

2.82

S #18

3.5

2.77

S #1

4.0

2.52

S #15

3.0

2.39

S #3

2.0

2.26

S #2

2.5

2.14

S #4

2.0

1.88

S #13

2.0

1.78

S #21

2.5

1.6

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Appendix C: Second free writing of Student #12 How We Make Life-and-Death Decisions After reading the text many times, I could get the point. The author says about our consideration before making the life-death decision. Usually people will take the directly emotional reaction rather than sacrificing someone important to save others’ life. Thus, the author makes us rethink again whether our action is made with consideration of other people or worse, just ourselves. Free writing ‘the Trolley Problem’ Life-Death Final Decisions When it comes to the time for making a decision, people will seek many considerations. When people faced into life-death decision, their heart and their logical thinking will be in dilemma. Will they deprive other’s innocent life? Will they sacrifice someone they loved? Between emotion and rational is a complicated implication. Is it really a matter when we must lethal others? The answer is “NO”. There are many reasons; even more, why I, as the writer of this article, say that if I were the one to decide what to do in “the trolley problem” situation, I will pull the lever so that it will minimize the loss of life. Usually, in the difficult situation, people will do something without giving or thinking any logical reasons for it. In this case is to pull the lever, but it deprive other’s life. In fact, researches prove that direct respond is very influence someone taking the action. Lethal someone’s life isn’t a matter at all, unless you don’t do it on purpose. In addition, it won’t be feeling of guilty. If I were faced this hard situation, however, I have done my best to minimize the loss of life. David Hume, a philosopher, says, “Morality is more properly felt than judged of; though this feeling or sentiment is commonly so soft and gentle, that we are apt to confound it with an idea.” It means that moral reasoning usually wins. Moral reasoning always follows with emotional reaction. Why no sacrificing someone is “selfish gene”. Why should this be labeled as “selfish gene”? Researchers say that every human has selfish gene. So, nobody wants to sacrifice someone he / she loved. People consider

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someone they know to be loved rather than someone they don’t know anything, therefore there is a proverb, “Not know, so not love.” Should people be angry for this? Of course not, if people don’t want to sacrifice someone they really love, it’s a normal thing. When I pull the lever, it also might cause my death. But, I will choose sacrificing myself rather than seeing my lover die. My father’s patient had experienced this situation. A woman had a stroke comatous husband. For ten years, her husband could do nothing, he just lying on the bed using interstice. The woman also couldn’t do anything, unless take care of him. They were a poor family and had no money support anymore. Even, doctors had judged that he wouldn’t be ill. What did she do then? She asked my father, who is a doctor, to give death injection. My father didn’t want to, because euthanasia is illegal. Actually, that woman could kill her husband herself by not giving foods and drinks for two days, but she didn’t do it because she still loved him. She would think hundred times to sacrifice someone she loved. Therefore, she didn’t care the doctor’s position and wanted him to sacrifice for her husband’s sake. She preferred doing as best as she could and suffering a lot in not making her husband die. Thus, in the pinched situation, it’s ok to lethal other unintentionally. However, people should have done their best first not to both suffer a loss. If it can’t, choosing someone they loved isn’t wrong thing. People can’t deny that they will rather take emotional intuition reaction to take the best next path. (Quoted as it was posted, without any revision/editing)

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