assignments ENGL301 Writing & The Teaching of Writing: Book Club
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LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall Bridgewater State University 508.531.2436 [email protected] www.leetorda.com |
Summer 2020
All Summer Session I classes have been moved online due to the Covid-19 emergency. Online Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday evening, 7:00-8:00 PM and by appointment (email me at [email protected] to set up an a time). |
Overview
It’s one thing to learn methods of teaching; it’s one thing to think about your “philosophy” of teaching; it’s one thing to read about how hard it is to teach. But it’s a totally different thing to hear from actual teachers in actual classrooms who are actually teaching what it’s like to be a teacher, what the difficult parts of it are, what the joys are, what their training as students of education and pre-service teachers prepared them for and what it didn’t. I have the honor to know a great many of the great humans teaching in Southeastern Massachusetts because of the very course you are currently enrolled in, and I’m so excited to be able to offer their experience as a great resource for you in this project, Interview with a teacher.The BSU teacher alumni/ae who have volunteered to do this are very excited to be a part of this project. I hope you will honor their enthusiasm and kindness with the same in return.
Details
1. We will have the opportunity to talk with 6 to 9 different teachers in the area at all stages of their careers. Either you will personally have the chance to talk with and interview them during one of your hour long Thursday class meetings or you will be able to watch a recording of another group's session. Interviews will run for roughly a half hour to be thoughtful about our interviewee's time. In order to complete this assignment, you will have access to all the interviews that we do in class. You do not need to use all of them to complete your work, but you have access to them. I would suggest including at least all of the interviews you were in class to here in your final project as a guideline.
2. As a class, mainly in-class, we will develop a set of common questions. I will email these questions to our alums prior to their interview so they know what we are asking them. During the interview, I'll ask each of you to speak up and ask one of the questions to our alums. To support your question development, we will be reading about the experience of students and teachers in Mike Rose’s Lives on the Boundary. We will also consider questions that you might have about teaching either based on experience, on what you know about education from your classes or media, and in light of some of the reading, including the the Why Johnny Can’t material, that we have done or will do in this class.
3. Once the interview starts things can go a couple of ways. It might turn out that our questions provide enough material for the whole 1/2 hour. But you will want to try to identify themes and/or questions you have about what your alum is telling you. You may have to in class and on the fly develop some follow up questions. Obviously it's a good idea for you to take notes during the interview.
Here are the recordings from Week Four of class. This was the first week's worth of interviews. You are welcome to use any or all of the interviews, but are only required to use the interviews that were a part of your class.
It’s one thing to learn methods of teaching; it’s one thing to think about your “philosophy” of teaching; it’s one thing to read about how hard it is to teach. But it’s a totally different thing to hear from actual teachers in actual classrooms who are actually teaching what it’s like to be a teacher, what the difficult parts of it are, what the joys are, what their training as students of education and pre-service teachers prepared them for and what it didn’t. I have the honor to know a great many of the great humans teaching in Southeastern Massachusetts because of the very course you are currently enrolled in, and I’m so excited to be able to offer their experience as a great resource for you in this project, Interview with a teacher.The BSU teacher alumni/ae who have volunteered to do this are very excited to be a part of this project. I hope you will honor their enthusiasm and kindness with the same in return.
Details
1. We will have the opportunity to talk with 6 to 9 different teachers in the area at all stages of their careers. Either you will personally have the chance to talk with and interview them during one of your hour long Thursday class meetings or you will be able to watch a recording of another group's session. Interviews will run for roughly a half hour to be thoughtful about our interviewee's time. In order to complete this assignment, you will have access to all the interviews that we do in class. You do not need to use all of them to complete your work, but you have access to them. I would suggest including at least all of the interviews you were in class to here in your final project as a guideline.
2. As a class, mainly in-class, we will develop a set of common questions. I will email these questions to our alums prior to their interview so they know what we are asking them. During the interview, I'll ask each of you to speak up and ask one of the questions to our alums. To support your question development, we will be reading about the experience of students and teachers in Mike Rose’s Lives on the Boundary. We will also consider questions that you might have about teaching either based on experience, on what you know about education from your classes or media, and in light of some of the reading, including the the Why Johnny Can’t material, that we have done or will do in this class.
3. Once the interview starts things can go a couple of ways. It might turn out that our questions provide enough material for the whole 1/2 hour. But you will want to try to identify themes and/or questions you have about what your alum is telling you. You may have to in class and on the fly develop some follow up questions. Obviously it's a good idea for you to take notes during the interview.
Here are the recordings from Week Four of class. This was the first week's worth of interviews. You are welcome to use any or all of the interviews, but are only required to use the interviews that were a part of your class.
4. In your final portfolio due at the end of week five, You will write an analysis, 750 words, typed. In your analysis, you’ll want to establish a kind of thesis/ main idea/theme for what you learned about teaching (particularly teaching ELA) from our interviews. To do this, to develop a thesis, you will need to do some "scrubbing of the data." You will need to analyze what you are hearing from our teachers. Some angles you can consider as you do this:
We will have an online workshop on a draft of your profile prior to your turning it in. This will happen in small groups the last week of classes. You can sign up for one of those optional conferences here. It should work out to three or four students per group. It will take roughly a half hour of your time.
When you are done with your individual analysis, we will come together as part of our last class to develop a visual (a prezi type deal thing or wordle or something better or different—still working that out), that traces the themes/issues/ joys that you found in your individual analyses to try to get a wider sense of what a teacher’s life is like. This will be an in-class, whole-class project.
HOW YOU WILL BE EVALUATED
Your Interview with a Teacher assignment is worth 10% of your final grade. In order to earn a “B” grade for that 15% you must
If you fail to meet the requirements to earn a “C” grade you will fail the 10% of your final grade that the Interview with a Teacher counts for.
- What have they identified as a joy of teaching?
- And, on the other end, what have they identified as the difficulties of teaching?
- What do they consider some of the most important elements of a really great classroom experience for students and teachers alike?
- How prepared did they feel going in to the classroom?
- What do they wish they had understood better about teaching before they got there?
- What advice do they have for up and coming teachers?
- What practices, policies, texts do you use that you swear by?
- What just doesn't seem to work?
We will have an online workshop on a draft of your profile prior to your turning it in. This will happen in small groups the last week of classes. You can sign up for one of those optional conferences here. It should work out to three or four students per group. It will take roughly a half hour of your time.
When you are done with your individual analysis, we will come together as part of our last class to develop a visual (a prezi type deal thing or wordle or something better or different—still working that out), that traces the themes/issues/ joys that you found in your individual analyses to try to get a wider sense of what a teacher’s life is like. This will be an in-class, whole-class project.
HOW YOU WILL BE EVALUATED
Your Interview with a Teacher assignment is worth 10% of your final grade. In order to earn a “B” grade for that 15% you must
- Participate as required in getting the interview questions together and in interviewing our alumni/ae teachers.
- Produce a draft for the in-class workshop
- Provide thoughtful feedback during the workshop documented (in-class) using the interview workshop worksheet.
- Identify a revision plan for your profile using feedback from the workshop, documented in writing in a revision plan letter (that you will write on the day of the workshop).
- Turn in a revised draft to me in your final portfolio
- Participate in the in-class development of the thematic visual representation of what we learn as a class.
- Do all the thing identified for the “B” grade
- Demonstrate thoughtfulness through follow up questions as needed in the interview
- Consider more than just the interviews you were present for during your Thursday group class.
- Demonstrate real consideration of revision based on the workshop
- Demonstrate a commitment to strong, informative, engaging prose in your writing.
- Participate as required in getting the interview questions together and in interviewing our alumni/ae teachers.
- Turn in a draft to me.
- Participate in the in-class development of the thematic visual representation of what we learn as a class.
If you fail to meet the requirements to earn a “C” grade you will fail the 10% of your final grade that the Interview with a Teacher counts for.