Pedagogy Jan 2009

Traction

Dara Rossman Regaignon

Abstract

Entering college students often struggle with their professors' expectations for “analysis” since those expectations are often ingrained in disciplinary assumptions that scholars rarely need to articulate. In this essay, I argue that we need to teach analysis explicitly in first-year writing courses and that we need to help students transfer those lessons across the curriculum. By asking students to read “with” and “against” the grain of texts, I give them tangible ways to rough up and pull apart the sources we read together. Students find this language useful in helping them engage directly with sources and ideas, rather than sliding into description or summary. Reminding them that this particular approach originates in the discipline of literary studies, I then have students themselves draw conclusions about what “analysis” looks like -- and what it does -- in other disciplines by examining samples of scholarly writing.

Journal
Pedagogy
Published
2009-01-01
DOI
10.1215/15314200-2008-020
Open Access
Closed
Topics
first-year composition

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (3)

  1. Li (2025)
    Beyond Surfaces and Depths: An SFL Analysis of Fine Gradations of Meaning in Un…
    Written Communication
  2. Lockhart et al. (2016)
    The Critical Place of Reading in Writing Transfer (and Beyond)
    Pedagogy
  3. Brockman (2010)
    Taking Stock
    Pedagogy

Cites in this index (0)

No references match articles in this index.

Also cites 6 works outside this index ↓
  1. Bartholomae, David. 2005 [1985]. “Inventing the University.” In Writing on the Margins: Essays on Composition…
     ↗
  2. Bialostosky, Don. 2006. “Should College English Be Close Reading?” College English69: 111 - 17.
     ↗
  3. Durbach, Nadja. 2002. “Class, Gender, and the Conscientious Objector to Vaccination, 1898 – 1907.” Journal of…
     ↗
  4. Gopnik, Alison, and Peter Graf. 1988. “Knowing How You Know: Young Children's Ability to Identify and Remembe…
     ↗
  5. MacDonald, Susan Peck. 1987. “Problem Definition in Academic Writing.” College English49: 315 - 31.
     ↗
  6. Marcus, Sharon. 2005. “Contracting Female Marriage in Anthony Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?” Nineteenth-Cen…
     ↗
CrossRef global citation count: 3 View in citation network →

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