Composing a Profession:
Writing About Working,
with a Special Focus on Nursing
Marc Guidry, Associate Professor of English,
Stephen F. Austin State University
August 8, 2012
This presentation is based on the
Rhetoric and Composition (ENG 131)
course I taught at SFA in the Fall of
2011.
All the students were first-semester
Nursing majors.

FIG stands for “Freshman Interest Group.”

A FIG is a cohort of students who develop a learning
community by taking certain classes together.

FIGs increase retention of students and are
particularly beneficial for minority students b/c they
integrate them more fully with other students, thereby
breaking down stereotypes.
The students in my FIG attended 3 classes together in
Fall 2011:
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Nursing History (NUR 350)
A special section of SFA 101 designed expressly for
new Nursing majors (SFA 101.051)
My section of Rhetoric & Composition (ENG
131.010)
Multidisciplinary

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the science of nursing
the history of nursing
the art of writing
Collaborative
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group planning for interviews
practice teams for interviews
peer evaluation of essay drafts
Holistic
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critical thinking
invention
planning
evaluation
revision
metacognition
Service-learning oriented

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Students had to contact and interview an area nurse.
Selected student profiles of area nurses were published
in The Daily Sentinel, elevating the importance of the
nursing profession in the community.
ohttp://dailysentinel.com/news/local/article_25b6eda8-0a9611e1-8496-001cc4c002e0.html
ohttp://dailysentinel.com/news/local/article_7c1ad36a-197511e1-8287-001cc4c002e0.html
ohttp://dailysentinel.com/news/local/article_e79bb5ba-303a11e1-99ce-001871e3ce6c.html
Reporting Information Essay

Students wrote on a major debilitating disease:
◦ defined it
◦ analyzed its causes & effects
◦ described treatment, esp. as germane to nursing care

Accompanied the reading of Bed Number Ten, by Sue
Baier and Mary Zimmeth Schomaker
◦ about Baier’s traumatic experience of a severe case of the
crippling disease known as Guillain-Barré syndrome and the
often poor care she received in the hospital during her long
convalescence.
Profile Essay

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Students interviewed a nurse from East Texas about
her/his career as a nurse.
Students created a profile of the nurse based on the
interview.
Literary Analysis Essay

Students analyzed a novel, My Name Is Mary Sutter, by
Robin Oliveira.
◦ protagonist a nurse who becomes the first female American
surgeon
◦ “Mary Sutter” based partly on real-life surgeon Mary Edwards
Walker (1832-1919)

Analyses contextualized through application of primary
& secondary historical sources to the novel
Arguing a Position Essay

Students defended a position vis-à-vis a current medical
controversy, such as
◦
◦
◦
◦
The Affordable Care Act
Birth Control in Texas Schools
Physician-assisted Suicide
Rationing health care
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Nurse interview standard assignment for NUR 350;
ENG 131.010 expanded it into a formal profile essay
Textbook for NUR 350)—A History of American
Nursing (Judd, Sitzman, and Davis, 2010)—a secondary
source for analyzing historical accuracy of My Name Is
Mary Sutter

Strategies for researching essays reinforced by research
skills taught in SFA 101
Purpose: Describe etiology & care
for a debilitating disease
Reporting
Information
Essay
Audience: 1st-yr.
students
Author: Nursing
students/witness
to disease

E:\Teaching Writing 2012 Presentation\reporting essay
unit schedule.docx

E:\Teaching Writing 2012 Presentation\brittany
patterson reporting essay
Parkinson_s_Disease_Paper[1].docx
The FIG reporting essay asked students to
explain the concept of a particular debilitating
disease, with an emphasis on managing patient
care.
 You can ask each of your students to choose a
profession they may be interested in pursuing &
explain a key concept related to that profession
for their peers.

Geologist—Why have we been experiencing so many
earthquakes in East Texas this year?
Auto Mechanic—How is it possible for a diesel engine not
to have a spark ignition?
Cosmetologist—Why does someone need a license to
braid hair professionally in the state of Texas?
Plumber—What types of pipe can be used to run a natural
gas line in one’s house? Is there a preference?
Banker/Finance—What is the difference between
commercial banking and investment banking?
Farmer—How have irrigation methods in Texas evolved
over time, and how are they more effective today?
High School Teacher—What is the flipped classroom and
in what scenarios would it provide better learning for
students?
Carpenter—Is it easier to build a wood-framed or a metalframed home? What are the advantages of each?
Doctor—Why are surgeries increasingly being performed
to fetuses in utero, when this can be risky to the mother?
Chef—What is the local foods movement and how is it
affecting menus at restaurants?
Respond in complete sentences to the following:
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Brainstorm 3 jobs you would like to know more about.
Why are you interested in those jobs?
What fascinates you about each job?
What is a key concept/phenomenon/question related to
each job?
Purpose: Profile an East Texas nurse
Profile
Essay
Audience: Daily
Sentinel readers
Author: Nursing
Student
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E:\Teaching Writing 2012 Presentation\profile essay
unit schedule.docx

E:\Teaching Writing 2012 Presentation\briana jones
profile essay.docx

Baylor University Institute for Oral History,
“Introduction to Oral History”
http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/43912.pd
f
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Oral History Association, “Principles and Best
Practices”
http://www.oralhistory.org/do-oral-history/principles-andpractices/#general
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Nurse Interview Questions
E:\Teaching Writing 2012 Presentation\nurse interview
questions.docx
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Format for nurse interview transcript
E:\Teaching Writing 2012 Presentation\format for nurse
interview transcript.docx
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Schedule for Nurse Interviews
E:\Teaching Writing 2012 Presentation\schedule for nurse
interviews.docx
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Release forms for nurse interviews
E:\Teaching Writing 2012 Presentation\Interviewee Release
Form.doc

Have students interview someone working
locally in a career in which they have an
interest.
o
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It can be any field.
Have students transform their interviews into
formal essays.
Use selected interviews from Studs Terkel’s
book Working: People Talk About What They
Do All Day and How They Feel About What
They Do (NY: Pantheon, 1974)—a pioneering
work in oral history—as models.
You might want to give particular consideration to the
interviews with
 Roberto Acuna (a Chicano migrant worker in California)
 Lincoln James (a black worker in a Chicago rendering and
glue factory, where spoiled meat and bones are transformed
into industrial products)
 Phil Stallings (a white spot-welder at a Ford factory on the
South Side of Chicago)
 Grace Clements (a white worker at a Chicago luggage factory
where the conditions border on the Dickensian)
 Bud Freeman (a successful jazz musician on the tenor
saxophone).
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Break up into pairs.
Interview your partner for 10 minutes about the
first job they got after they began high school:
◦ What was the job and what kind of tasks did it
involve?
◦ Why did they take it?
◦ Was it fulfilling?
◦ Was it creative in any way?
◦ Did it change their life for the better?

Partner then interviews you for 10 minutes.
Purpose: Analyze My Name Is Mary Sutter
Literary
Analysis
Essay
Audience: Readers
of the novel
Author: Informed reader
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E:\Teaching Writing 2012 Presentation\literary analysis
essay unit schedule.docx
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Mary and Stipp’s first amputation—p. 149-51
Teaching Writing 2012 Presentation\Mary and Stipp
amputate leg.pdf
◦ Compare to passage from The Practice of Surgery by Samuel
Cooper
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/leg-amputation.htm
◦ Compare to reenactment of Civil War surgeon’s amputation of
a leg from video produced by the Museum of the Confederacy
in Richmond, Virginia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T5v_QbFZDU&feature=rel
ated
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Mary’s misunderstanding of suppuration of a wound as
something beneficial to the patient—pp. 170 and 196
oTeaching Writing 2012 Presentation\Mary thinks suppuration makes
patient well.pdf
oTeaching Writing 2012 Presentation\Mary not to worry about
suppuration.pdf
 Compare to discussion of advent of germ theory in A History of
American Nursing, pp. 47-8
Teaching Writing 2012 Presentation\A History of American Nursing
on germ theory of infection.pdf
 Compare to Ehistory archive (hosted by the Ohio State University
Department of History) on Civil War medicine
http://ehistory.osu.edu/uscw/features/medicine/cwsurgeon/introductio
n.cfm
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Sample student papers\nikki childs
literary_analysis_final_draft[1].docx
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There are two recent anthologies of fiction centering
on the working life:
◦ David Gate’s Labor Days: An Anthology of Fiction
about Work (Random House, 2004)
◦ Richard Ford’s Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar:
Stories about Work (Harper, 2011)

There are also some classic American stories
about work, such as Herman Melville’s Bartleby,
the Scrivener; John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of
Wrath; and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.

Read the following passages from My Name Is Mary
Sutter :
oE:\Teaching Writing 2012 Presentation\Blevins shows Mary
bacteria in his microscope.pdf
oE:\Teaching Writing 2012 Presentation\Mary regrets Lister's
findings didn't come sooner.pdf
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How does the following film by Dr. Robert Berdan,
“Microscopic Life in a Drop of Water,” inform readers’
appreciation of the above passages?
ohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5KFVAJH5TU&feature=r
elated