5.+Book+Critique+and+Summary

__**Summary **__

Overall we feel that this book attempts to teach students using 3 different types of pedagogies which are process, current-traditional and rhetorical. Throughout the book we noticed that the authors would often use current-traditional and process simultaneously in a chapter when it came to examples and instructions. They used the linear pattern that is presented in Sommers' essay titled, "Revision strategies of student writers and experienced adult writers" of prewrite, write, revise, which lends itself to current-traditional pedagogy.

As we looked more in depth at the examples and instructions the book was giving, we noticed that they were attempting to teach a process style rather than a current-traditional. For example, they had students doing free writes as activities before they began writing. Language Network also encourages students to find their "inner writer" throughout many of the sections. It became clearer that through these activities they were attempting to have a process approach to teaching, rather than a current-traditional basis. They seemed to use a current-traditional way of structuring the writing process as a safety net rather than as a way of teaching, meaning that they didn't really want to teach students that current-traditional was the only way they could go about writing. Instead, they used it to build a foundation of structure and at the same time encouraged students to explore other options.

Not only did they use process and current-traditional, but they also incorporated rhetorical pedagogy in the section that discussed communication skills. We found that this final section could be applied to writing when using a rhetorical pedagogy by addressing the issue of audience and the purpose of argument. It tells the students to be aware of the audience that they will be addressing and what information they are trying to convey. For example, a student would not address their classmates the same way they would address the school board or someone of authority.

__**Critique **__

We felt that this book had a lot of good information and the fact that they combined different pedagogies was a good way to expose students to as many different teaching styles as possible. It's important to have students write in different styles so that they can decide which process or type of writing best suites them. We thought that this book did a good job of not forcing a specific way of writing onto the students. The activities that the book offered, such as the free writes, allowed students to get comfortable with their own style of writing and explore their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to the writing process. We felt that if students did the activities throughout the book, they would come out with a strong sense of their own voice and style and would be able to utilize it in the most beneficial way as possible.

However, some parts of the book we felt were redundant and non-beneficial to the students. For example, the first section of the book, concentrated on grammar and sentence structure. This raised a problem for us, knowing that the textbook is geared towards 11th grade English classes. This far into the students' educational careers, we felt it was unnecessary to spend almost half of the book on knowledge that should already be known. Not only could the first section have been shorter, but it also would have benefited the students if it were moved to the last section of the book. Having this section in the beginning of the book implies that the information is the most important and necessary to achieve 'good writing.' We disagreed with the emphasis of this section, and also where it was placed - had it been moved to the last section, students could use it as a reference if they needed it, and it wouldn't appear to be the most important aspect of the writing experience. We felt as though it’s important to concentrate on the student’s actual writing as teachers and let the grammar and mechanics fall into place as need be.

Overall we believe that the book did a good job of teaching students effective writing and communication skills. Not only that, the book is unique in the way it offers different styles of pedagogies, which will benefit us as future educators as well. It gives teachers the option to teach with multiple pedagogies and functions more as a guide rather than restricting the teacher to its contents. We all agreed that we would use this book in our classrooms to help students advance their writing and develop their own view of writing, their personal voice and help them to figure out what works best for them.