portfolios ENGL493 Seminar in Writing and Writing Studies: The History First Year Composition
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LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall Bridgewater State University 508.531.2436 [email protected] www.leetorda.com |
SPRING 2014 Office Hours
Monday: 3:30 to 4:30 Tuesday: 11:00 to 12:00 Friday: 1:00 to 2:00 and by appointment. |
OVERVIEW. Portfolios are used in different ways in different settings, and they are very often the subject of scholarship and conversation in Rhetoric & Composition. The idea behind a portfolio system of evaluation is that it supports the kinds of writing and revision practices important to any classroom that employs any kind of process pedagogy. A portfolio can mean a collection of everything a student does in a semester--so like an archive of a student's experience as a writer. It can be just one paper that a student has revised over and over again. It should and usually does include reflection on the part of the student: what have I learned as I wrote and revised, starting at point A and ending, here, at point B.
Some scholars and critics see the portfolio as a more equitable and authentic form of evaluation because it allows for not just finished products but the process it took to get there. It values effort--and, in that way, it allows a teacher to evaluate an entire student performance and not just the four or five formal pieces of writing a student might turn in--or the one or two papers a student might turn in.
The portfolio distinguishes between evaluation and assessment. Evaluation is a grade. It is a mark of value. It is an end point. Assessment is feedback at different points in the long process of developing a piece of writing. It is information that helps a student improve a text. The portfolio system demands of a student that they attend to revision, thereby helping a student to see the value of process, and, more importantly, to discover what their own writing process actually looks like. And it works the other way around: it gives a teacher information about what a student or a class needs in terms of where each individual writer is at. It can affect the course of a semester if a teacher is really paying attention. The portfolio system is in direct opposition to something like a final exam or something like an MCAS. Imagine whole states of students contributing to portfolios that determined their success in high school rather than one test? What would that look like? A lot of paper? Yes, and a lot of time to read those papers and all of that. The portfolio can be a cumbersome thing--and an expensive undertaking on a large scale. That's one of hte reasons it is not more universally embraced by individual teachers and school systems alike (but it has been done).
Ultimately, a portfolio in a writing class--or any class--can be a powerful way to connect students to their own work and their own learning in more deeply felt and permanent ways.
That's the idea anyway.
MIDTERM PORTFOLIO
The midterm portfolio for our class is an opportunity to bring together the many ideas we've talked about at breakneck speed about the origins of the composition classroom, the development of Rhetoric & Composition as a field of study, and the external forces that contributed to the creation of both. It is also a chance for me to formally evaluate you in ways recognized by the University (and by you).
All of the materials for the midterm portfolio are due to my Tilly 310 Office no later than 3:00 on Friday, 14 March 2014.
Midterm Portfolio Cover Letter Instructions
As has probably become clear (or maybe I should say as has become not so clear) is that Composition and Rhetoric, and, more specifically, First Year Writing, in its short history in the Academy, has served many functions and many populations; it has seen many changes over the years--and it has been the source of change and the victim of it as well. At the midpoint of the semester, it is worthwhile to tease out some of these themes. We move at breakneck speeds through centuries and decades worth of thinking by scholars and teachers. Here is a moment to try to make connections and tell the story as you understand it right now.
In class on the Wednesday before Spring break, we will try to map out what we understand about the five questions we started our semester with as it pertains to the scholars and types of pedagogies we've been exploring so far in class.
Those questions are:
You will leave class with this work fresh in your heart and head. You will also have your reading journals with my comments to help you to continue to think about these questions.
Between Wednesday's class and when the portfolios are due in my Tilly 310 office on Friday (no later than 3:00 PM), you will write a midterm cover letter that tries to understand how First Year Composition has become the class it is and the forces that made it so.
In order to do this, you should develop a theory of what First Year Composition actually is supposed to do (based not on your own experiences but on what you see the readings suggesting it is supposed to be). Then, select two readings from the early weeks of our class and two readings covered during the pedagogy presentations. Use these scholars to help you to develop your theory and to answer the question above (how has FYC become the class it is and what are the forces that made it so). You can elect to use more of the readings, but you are not required to do so.
Additionally, please consider the two Time magazine articles that I gave to you in class, "Why Johnny Can't Write" and "Has Open Admissions Failed." Consider how these articles help you answer the cover letter question.
Finally, the narrative of the FYC that we've been developing in class is the dominant narrative that shapes the discipline, but there are other narratives we might tell, and one of those narratives includes the history of Bridgewater State University. In the last part of your cover letter, consider the speech from the 1915 celebration of the then Normal School at Bridgewater's 75th anniversary as a teacher training institution. This document does not directly address FYC, but it does address teaching and teachers and students in interesting ways that can feel both familiar and foreign when talking about composition, particularly considering that BSU was born in 1840, around the time that Harvard decided to teach a kind of First Year Writing. Consider how the story of FYC might be different if told from the perspective of a school like BSU. How might the values and thinking around FYC be affected?
This may sound like a lot, but this is an informal document. You have great freedom in how you write this document, as long as you make the effort to answer the question. Additionally, it is important to say that there is no one right answer here. This is only the midterm and mostly I am interested in seeing where your thinking is at at this moment. So just give it some thought and try.
This cover letter should be roughly around 3 double-spaced typed pages. It shouldn't be much longer or too much shorter. Again, I want to stress this is not a formal essay. It is a cover letter meant to bring a number of strands of conversation from class together.
FINAL PORTFOLIO
Your Final Portfolio will consist of the following documents:
1. Include up to three reading journals, one of which may be from the first half of the semester (but only one). Write a single-spaced reflection of about ½ to 1 full page about how and why these readings most affected you in terms of what you learned about the history of composition this semester. Please only write one reflection for all three journal selections. Do not include reading journals I have not read or seen before. Do not revise your journals. Include them with my comments on them.
2. Your completed Interview Reflection. Take the feedback you received on your draft and polish this document into a respectable five page analysis of what you understand to be the reasons for, the successes of, the failures of, and, ultimately, the philosophy of a first year composition course. Consider what professional scholars in the field have to say about this subject. Consider what the Twitter Feed from the 2014 Cs conference reflected. Consider what reading the WPA listserv has led you to believe about Composition generally and first year composition quite specifically. Consider the reading we have done during the semester, and in particular the reading from the back half of the semester.
While this is not a formal research paper, it is a scholarly essay. You should move your draft from thoughtful , relaxed reflection (more in line with your reading journals), to a scholarly piece in terms of tone and content. You should have a thesis that develops over the course of the five pages. You should include primary source material from all of the sources listed above.
3. Your completed Annotated Bibliography and Cover letter. Select an article written during the last half of the semester. If you have a particular essay you’d prefer to use, just check with me. Select at least 10 and no more than 15 citations from the bibliography for that article. I would recommend not selecting books; book chapters are appropriate. Read and annotate these articles in three sentences that follow this structure: 1) a sentence about the thesis of the article—what it argues; 2) a sentence about the methodology of that essay—how they argue what they argue; 3) the significance of the argument—how does this argument contribute to the development of the field. For the final portfolio you will include a three page, double-spaced essay that reflects on the following: what does this body of scholarship care about in relationship to our five questions (who is being taught? Who is doing the teaching? What is being taught? How is it being taught? And why is it being taught?).
4. For Extra Credit Only: A revision of your pedagogy reflection. Use the feedback you received in your midterm portfolio to craft a more thoughtful and scholarly reflection on what you saw in that classroom.
Some scholars and critics see the portfolio as a more equitable and authentic form of evaluation because it allows for not just finished products but the process it took to get there. It values effort--and, in that way, it allows a teacher to evaluate an entire student performance and not just the four or five formal pieces of writing a student might turn in--or the one or two papers a student might turn in.
The portfolio distinguishes between evaluation and assessment. Evaluation is a grade. It is a mark of value. It is an end point. Assessment is feedback at different points in the long process of developing a piece of writing. It is information that helps a student improve a text. The portfolio system demands of a student that they attend to revision, thereby helping a student to see the value of process, and, more importantly, to discover what their own writing process actually looks like. And it works the other way around: it gives a teacher information about what a student or a class needs in terms of where each individual writer is at. It can affect the course of a semester if a teacher is really paying attention. The portfolio system is in direct opposition to something like a final exam or something like an MCAS. Imagine whole states of students contributing to portfolios that determined their success in high school rather than one test? What would that look like? A lot of paper? Yes, and a lot of time to read those papers and all of that. The portfolio can be a cumbersome thing--and an expensive undertaking on a large scale. That's one of hte reasons it is not more universally embraced by individual teachers and school systems alike (but it has been done).
Ultimately, a portfolio in a writing class--or any class--can be a powerful way to connect students to their own work and their own learning in more deeply felt and permanent ways.
That's the idea anyway.
MIDTERM PORTFOLIO
The midterm portfolio for our class is an opportunity to bring together the many ideas we've talked about at breakneck speed about the origins of the composition classroom, the development of Rhetoric & Composition as a field of study, and the external forces that contributed to the creation of both. It is also a chance for me to formally evaluate you in ways recognized by the University (and by you).
All of the materials for the midterm portfolio are due to my Tilly 310 Office no later than 3:00 on Friday, 14 March 2014.
- Select up to three reading journals from the first half of the semester that reflect significant moments of learning for you. A place where you learned things you never knew before; a place where you thought about writing and/or a writing classroom differently because of something you read; a place where something resonated for you as a student at a state university generally, not necessarily as a writer. Whatever you pick, interpret "significant moments of learning" broadly. You do not need to revise or print out fresh copies. You can give me the copies that I wrote on. In addition to the actual journals, please include a reflection of no less than half a page and no more than one full page, single-spaced, typed about why you selected these particular journals--in what ways do they document moments of learning for you.
- Your blog post & up to two other blog posts that you enjoyed. Again, no need to revise, simply print and include the material. In addition to the posts themselves, please include a reflection of no less than half a page and no more than one full page, single-spaced, typed about what you've learned so far about what people who teach and study composition seem to care about. Does that surprise you? Worry you? Make you feel like the world isn't such a bad place after all? Feel like you've been snookered by idiots all these years? Whatever you have to say, just say it (in 1/2 to 1 full, typed, single-spaced page).
- Your completed Pedagogy Case Study Reflection & collected observation/interview materials. For complete details about what you are responsible for, please consult the Pedagogy Case Study assignment page located on this website.
- Midterm Portfolio Cover Letter. On the last Wednesday before Spring Break, we will do a class exercise that will prepare you to write this cover letter. You will, however, write the letter outside of class, and include it in your midterm materials (due to my Tilly 310 office no later than 3:00 on Friday, 7 March 2014).
Midterm Portfolio Cover Letter Instructions
As has probably become clear (or maybe I should say as has become not so clear) is that Composition and Rhetoric, and, more specifically, First Year Writing, in its short history in the Academy, has served many functions and many populations; it has seen many changes over the years--and it has been the source of change and the victim of it as well. At the midpoint of the semester, it is worthwhile to tease out some of these themes. We move at breakneck speeds through centuries and decades worth of thinking by scholars and teachers. Here is a moment to try to make connections and tell the story as you understand it right now.
In class on the Wednesday before Spring break, we will try to map out what we understand about the five questions we started our semester with as it pertains to the scholars and types of pedagogies we've been exploring so far in class.
Those questions are:
- Who is being taught?
- Who is teaching?
- What are they teaching?
- How are they teaching it?
- Why is it being taught--what is the driving idea of the role of education or the role of literacy?
You will leave class with this work fresh in your heart and head. You will also have your reading journals with my comments to help you to continue to think about these questions.
Between Wednesday's class and when the portfolios are due in my Tilly 310 office on Friday (no later than 3:00 PM), you will write a midterm cover letter that tries to understand how First Year Composition has become the class it is and the forces that made it so.
In order to do this, you should develop a theory of what First Year Composition actually is supposed to do (based not on your own experiences but on what you see the readings suggesting it is supposed to be). Then, select two readings from the early weeks of our class and two readings covered during the pedagogy presentations. Use these scholars to help you to develop your theory and to answer the question above (how has FYC become the class it is and what are the forces that made it so). You can elect to use more of the readings, but you are not required to do so.
Additionally, please consider the two Time magazine articles that I gave to you in class, "Why Johnny Can't Write" and "Has Open Admissions Failed." Consider how these articles help you answer the cover letter question.
Finally, the narrative of the FYC that we've been developing in class is the dominant narrative that shapes the discipline, but there are other narratives we might tell, and one of those narratives includes the history of Bridgewater State University. In the last part of your cover letter, consider the speech from the 1915 celebration of the then Normal School at Bridgewater's 75th anniversary as a teacher training institution. This document does not directly address FYC, but it does address teaching and teachers and students in interesting ways that can feel both familiar and foreign when talking about composition, particularly considering that BSU was born in 1840, around the time that Harvard decided to teach a kind of First Year Writing. Consider how the story of FYC might be different if told from the perspective of a school like BSU. How might the values and thinking around FYC be affected?
This may sound like a lot, but this is an informal document. You have great freedom in how you write this document, as long as you make the effort to answer the question. Additionally, it is important to say that there is no one right answer here. This is only the midterm and mostly I am interested in seeing where your thinking is at at this moment. So just give it some thought and try.
This cover letter should be roughly around 3 double-spaced typed pages. It shouldn't be much longer or too much shorter. Again, I want to stress this is not a formal essay. It is a cover letter meant to bring a number of strands of conversation from class together.
FINAL PORTFOLIO
Your Final Portfolio will consist of the following documents:
1. Include up to three reading journals, one of which may be from the first half of the semester (but only one). Write a single-spaced reflection of about ½ to 1 full page about how and why these readings most affected you in terms of what you learned about the history of composition this semester. Please only write one reflection for all three journal selections. Do not include reading journals I have not read or seen before. Do not revise your journals. Include them with my comments on them.
2. Your completed Interview Reflection. Take the feedback you received on your draft and polish this document into a respectable five page analysis of what you understand to be the reasons for, the successes of, the failures of, and, ultimately, the philosophy of a first year composition course. Consider what professional scholars in the field have to say about this subject. Consider what the Twitter Feed from the 2014 Cs conference reflected. Consider what reading the WPA listserv has led you to believe about Composition generally and first year composition quite specifically. Consider the reading we have done during the semester, and in particular the reading from the back half of the semester.
While this is not a formal research paper, it is a scholarly essay. You should move your draft from thoughtful , relaxed reflection (more in line with your reading journals), to a scholarly piece in terms of tone and content. You should have a thesis that develops over the course of the five pages. You should include primary source material from all of the sources listed above.
3. Your completed Annotated Bibliography and Cover letter. Select an article written during the last half of the semester. If you have a particular essay you’d prefer to use, just check with me. Select at least 10 and no more than 15 citations from the bibliography for that article. I would recommend not selecting books; book chapters are appropriate. Read and annotate these articles in three sentences that follow this structure: 1) a sentence about the thesis of the article—what it argues; 2) a sentence about the methodology of that essay—how they argue what they argue; 3) the significance of the argument—how does this argument contribute to the development of the field. For the final portfolio you will include a three page, double-spaced essay that reflects on the following: what does this body of scholarship care about in relationship to our five questions (who is being taught? Who is doing the teaching? What is being taught? How is it being taught? And why is it being taught?).
4. For Extra Credit Only: A revision of your pedagogy reflection. Use the feedback you received in your midterm portfolio to craft a more thoughtful and scholarly reflection on what you saw in that classroom.