assignments ENGL301 Writing & The Teaching of Writing:
Research in Teaching Diverse Students
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RESEARCH IN TEACHING DIVERSE POPULATIONS
Overview. During this second half of the semester you will take the theory work you’ve already done and develop meaningful classroom practices with them. To begin this work you will each locate, read, and annotate three journal articles. The focus of our research will be to look at how to best serve otherwise underserved populations in the reading/writing classroom.
Once you’ve completed your annotations, you’ll write an introductory cover letter to your bibliography that highlights what you find to be the most important things to know from your readings. Then, in a small group with others who researched your same topic, you’ll put together all of your bibliographies with an overview of the major issues involved. Additionally, you’ll look (as a group) at what information/help is available to you on the web. You will present your findings to the rest of the class along with your group’s ideas for bringing these practices into our classrooms.
In order to model for you what I am looking for in both the annotations and the presentation, I will do a presentation and handout on assessment first. We will also discuss the appropriate way to cite sources in the body of your writing as well as in a bibliography using APA style.
Why this focus on underserved populations? Because the classrooms you will enter into will be filled with diverse students that will most likely not be the student you are (because a lot of folks who want to become teachers found solace and comfort in school and, thus, imagine that school is that same thing for most students—and are often flummoxed at why it is not). Further, students who begin to fall behind in literacy as early as 4th grade are statistically more likely to drop out of high school. Thus, it is important to consider the diversity of student needs because much is at stake.
Here is a more detailed explanation of each part of the project:
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Locate and read three journal articles. Locate three articles on a topic that you will choose in consultation with me and others in your group. I reserve the right to veto articles I think aren’t meaty enough.
2. Read your articles, of course.
3. Annotate your articles. Annotation typically means a very brief—sometimes three sentences—summary of an article. I would like for your entries to approximate something more like a half page, double-spaced—but, seriously, no more: there is an art to good annotation; part of the skill of it is to be brief but potent. Think of these annotations as a briefer version of your reading journal: your annotations should include two or three sentences of summary, two or three sentences of review (how helpful or not helpful the article/chapter is), and two or three sentences that say something about what you might or might not try in your classroom because of something you read in this article (application).
4. Assemble your annotations with APA style . Citation information should be single spaced, APA style.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY COVER LETTER
1 .Take some time to consider what you are learning about your topic in these three articles. What seems to be the central concerns of your topic? If you can tell, who are the important theorists or practitioners? Are there any debates among scholars going on about different aspects of the topic? In what ways do the articles seem to be in agreement with one another? In what ways do the articles seem to take different directions?
2. Write an introductory cover letter for your annotations. This cover letter should consideration the thinking work you did in Step One. Your cover letter should be about three pages double-spaced—use the same guidelines as for all of your other pieces of formal writing. We'll have a in-class writing session to help you formulate this cover-letter, and you'll have some time to get some feedback from classmates as well. Do NOT simply re-summarize the articles in the cover letter. Try, instead, to convey what this body of research values about students, teaching, and teachers. The cover letter should put your articles in conversation with each other.
3. Turn it in as part of your final portfolio. I’ll give you advice on the art of annotation and your introduction.
GROUP WORK
1. Once you’ve completed the individual bibliography , you’ll get together with the other people in the class that researched your topic. You should expect to share your cover letter to your annotated bibliography with everyone in your group. Discuss in your group the answers to the same sorts of questions that I asked you above regarding your individual annotated bibliography, this time considering what all of you had to say about your articles and your topic. You’ll share what you found out individually and put it together for presentation to the rest of the class.
2. Prepare a handout for the rest of the class. You need to create a handout that brings together important information and ideas about your topic that you think would help your classmates if they were walking down the street and suddenly got asked their opinion on, for example, assessment. This handout should be something that they could whip out of their pockets and use as a cheat sheet—and look really, really smart doing it. Perhaps it goes without saying but the work you’ve done reflecting on your own articles and then also on your websites should inform your handout. Your handout is due on the day of your presentation.
3. Finally, as a group, develop an assignment that you might give to actual students that reflects what you’ve learned about your particular topic—a clever assignment that reflects what you’ve learned about how to teach to all students in your classroom, including the population you’ve researched. We'll be reading in Write Beside Them and Because Writing Matters about good assignments. You should consider this as you plan your assignments.
6. In addition to the assignment, come up with a way to meaningfully assess and evaluate the assignment you’ve come up with. Use what we will have covered on assessment in class to help you with this.
ON THE DAY OF YOUR PRESENTATION (during the final exam)
You’ll have up to 30 minutes to present. I’ll keep you to that. During that time, the class is yours to do with as you see fit. This presentation should include the following:
Remember to consult the syllabus for important due dates.
HOW YOU WILL BE EVALUATED
This assignment is worth 15% of your final grade. In order to earn a "B" grade you must
In order to earn an "A" grade, you must
In order to earn a "C" grade, you must
If you fail to complete the requirements for a "C grade, you will earn and "F" grade for this 15% of the semester.
Overview. During this second half of the semester you will take the theory work you’ve already done and develop meaningful classroom practices with them. To begin this work you will each locate, read, and annotate three journal articles. The focus of our research will be to look at how to best serve otherwise underserved populations in the reading/writing classroom.
Once you’ve completed your annotations, you’ll write an introductory cover letter to your bibliography that highlights what you find to be the most important things to know from your readings. Then, in a small group with others who researched your same topic, you’ll put together all of your bibliographies with an overview of the major issues involved. Additionally, you’ll look (as a group) at what information/help is available to you on the web. You will present your findings to the rest of the class along with your group’s ideas for bringing these practices into our classrooms.
In order to model for you what I am looking for in both the annotations and the presentation, I will do a presentation and handout on assessment first. We will also discuss the appropriate way to cite sources in the body of your writing as well as in a bibliography using APA style.
Why this focus on underserved populations? Because the classrooms you will enter into will be filled with diverse students that will most likely not be the student you are (because a lot of folks who want to become teachers found solace and comfort in school and, thus, imagine that school is that same thing for most students—and are often flummoxed at why it is not). Further, students who begin to fall behind in literacy as early as 4th grade are statistically more likely to drop out of high school. Thus, it is important to consider the diversity of student needs because much is at stake.
Here is a more detailed explanation of each part of the project:
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Locate and read three journal articles. Locate three articles on a topic that you will choose in consultation with me and others in your group. I reserve the right to veto articles I think aren’t meaty enough.
2. Read your articles, of course.
3. Annotate your articles. Annotation typically means a very brief—sometimes three sentences—summary of an article. I would like for your entries to approximate something more like a half page, double-spaced—but, seriously, no more: there is an art to good annotation; part of the skill of it is to be brief but potent. Think of these annotations as a briefer version of your reading journal: your annotations should include two or three sentences of summary, two or three sentences of review (how helpful or not helpful the article/chapter is), and two or three sentences that say something about what you might or might not try in your classroom because of something you read in this article (application).
4. Assemble your annotations with APA style . Citation information should be single spaced, APA style.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY COVER LETTER
1 .Take some time to consider what you are learning about your topic in these three articles. What seems to be the central concerns of your topic? If you can tell, who are the important theorists or practitioners? Are there any debates among scholars going on about different aspects of the topic? In what ways do the articles seem to be in agreement with one another? In what ways do the articles seem to take different directions?
2. Write an introductory cover letter for your annotations. This cover letter should consideration the thinking work you did in Step One. Your cover letter should be about three pages double-spaced—use the same guidelines as for all of your other pieces of formal writing. We'll have a in-class writing session to help you formulate this cover-letter, and you'll have some time to get some feedback from classmates as well. Do NOT simply re-summarize the articles in the cover letter. Try, instead, to convey what this body of research values about students, teaching, and teachers. The cover letter should put your articles in conversation with each other.
3. Turn it in as part of your final portfolio. I’ll give you advice on the art of annotation and your introduction.
GROUP WORK
1. Once you’ve completed the individual bibliography , you’ll get together with the other people in the class that researched your topic. You should expect to share your cover letter to your annotated bibliography with everyone in your group. Discuss in your group the answers to the same sorts of questions that I asked you above regarding your individual annotated bibliography, this time considering what all of you had to say about your articles and your topic. You’ll share what you found out individually and put it together for presentation to the rest of the class.
2. Prepare a handout for the rest of the class. You need to create a handout that brings together important information and ideas about your topic that you think would help your classmates if they were walking down the street and suddenly got asked their opinion on, for example, assessment. This handout should be something that they could whip out of their pockets and use as a cheat sheet—and look really, really smart doing it. Perhaps it goes without saying but the work you’ve done reflecting on your own articles and then also on your websites should inform your handout. Your handout is due on the day of your presentation.
3. Finally, as a group, develop an assignment that you might give to actual students that reflects what you’ve learned about your particular topic—a clever assignment that reflects what you’ve learned about how to teach to all students in your classroom, including the population you’ve researched. We'll be reading in Write Beside Them and Because Writing Matters about good assignments. You should consider this as you plan your assignments.
6. In addition to the assignment, come up with a way to meaningfully assess and evaluate the assignment you’ve come up with. Use what we will have covered on assessment in class to help you with this.
ON THE DAY OF YOUR PRESENTATION (during the final exam)
You’ll have up to 30 minutes to present. I’ll keep you to that. During that time, the class is yours to do with as you see fit. This presentation should include the following:
- An overview of your topic. By overview, I DO NOT mean a recapitulation of each of your articles. I mean, rather, for you to help your classmates understand your topic. You are the experts. For the twenty minutes you are presenting, this is your class. You are teaching us what you know.
- An activity. This should include some writing/reflection, and can include anything. As you present this information, you should find ways to engage your classmates in the experience. You can ask your classmates to write, to move around, to talk to one another. You can give them sample assignments to do. As long as you are not risking the safety of your classmates, you can and should make the presentation as engaging and useful as you possibly can. I'm up here tap-dancing my heart out to keep you all interested in stuff and, yet, way to often, student presentations mean a bunch of talking heads and a powerpoint with too much writing on them. Ack. That's the sound a cat makes when they have a hairball.
- Your handout, with an explanation of why you’ve included what you’ve included—what is important about your topic
- An overview of your assignment and your assessment plan.
Remember to consult the syllabus for important due dates.
HOW YOU WILL BE EVALUATED
This assignment is worth 15% of your final grade. In order to earn a "B" grade you must
- Complete three annotations following the guidelines laid out in class
- Complete a cover letter that follows the assignment requirements
- Participate actively in the planning of your group presentation
- Participate in required workshops and planning sessions related to the assignment.
In order to earn an "A" grade, you must
- Do all of the things required of a B grade
- Develop a cover letter that analyzes an synthesizes information rather than just summarizes your research
- Produce a highly-engaging group presentation that helps your classmates fully understand the subject and actively engages them during your twenty minute presentation.
In order to earn a "C" grade, you must
- Complete three annotations following the guidelines laid out in class
- Complete a cover letter that attempts to follow the assignment requirements, even if it falls short
- Participates in some capacity in the planning of your group presentation.
If you fail to complete the requirements for a "C grade, you will earn and "F" grade for this 15% of the semester.