Summer 2020: policies ENGL301 Writing & The Teaching of Writing
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Need to be in touch with me?
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). |
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is designed to help prospective teachers develop a personal and professional sense of what they want their writing/reading classrooms to look like. To do this, the class will read and write together about current research and theory on the reading and writing process; about the reading/writing classroom, past and present; about the rules, regulations, and requirements placed upon you as teachers today; about the needs of all students as we help them become thoughtful readers and writers themselves. As we move forward with our understanding of all of this, we will remember where we all start: as students. Thus, you will examine your own personal writing/reading practices and your experience as a student as it impacts your future classroom as a teacher.
While we will explore various ways to theorize your teaching practice, my own classroom practice will identify the theories that I value. The classroom I construct will therefore reinforce particular theories of language and composition (and you should know this going in to the deal).
You will write informally and formally; you will work individually and as a group; you will present your ideas orally and in print. At the end of the semester you should have the beginnings of a set of documents that you can take with you into your professional career, and a theory/philosophy of their significance in your future classroom (that may or may not reflect what I value).
A NOTE ABOUT THIS CLASS IN SUMMER 2020. This course is one of my favorite courses to teach and perhaps the single most important course I teach because this class will play a role in teaching folks who will then go out and teach others. I never imagined this course as an online course, and I also never taught the class as a class to teach teachers how to teach writing online. And yet here we all are. This course is a substantial course with a substantial workload during the regular semester; I believe it is more challenging in five weeks, and even more so online. In our time together, it is my goal to make this online experience as thoughtful and useful as a face-to-face experience, and to develop our class into a true community of teachers and learners, a community of practice dedicated to exceptional literacy instruction.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of this course you will:
COURSE TEXTS
There are two text available in the bookstore for purchase (the titles are live links to the Amazon page):
Lives On the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles &
Achievements of America's Educationally Underprepared
by Mike Rose
Write Beside Them: Risk, Voice & Clarity in High School Writing
by Penny Kittle
Other readings, videos, or podcasts are available on the syllabus for your respective class either as a file to download or as a link. Including the .PDF of Asao Inoue's Anti-Racist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching & Assessing Writing For A Socially Just Future.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Attendance online. Your attendance is measured by the work you turn in and, when required, synchronous meetings (note: synchronous meetings are pending availability. If you have not yet filled out the availability survey, you can do so here).
Class Updates. It might seem silly to need to include this, but I've had experience in classes where students don't read these updates, thus, I include it as a requirement of the class. How will I know if you aren't reading? Trust me. I will know. And I won't hesitate to call you out on it. Updates for our class will appear on Wednesdays and Fridays each week by 5:00 PM. I will email you to alert you to that announcement. Sometimes I will video a message. Sometimes it will be a powerpoint with audio. Sometimes it will just be text. Class updates are more than just information about what to do next--they are that--but they are also a place where I try to bring together ideas and concepts you’ve been discussing in class as well as information that I think might have gotten left out of the conversation. It’s also a place for me to acknowledge particularly good ideas and the people in our class who have them.
Discussion Board Posts and Posting Deadlines. Discussion board post prompts will be posted to the ALL-CLASS DISCUSSION BOARD. Discussions are relatively informal, meaning I'm looking for thoughtful content most of all, not perfect writing (online does not lend itself to formal writing). Some are very specifically about the readings, those posts will count as a reading journals (read about that assignment below or on the reading journal assignment page). Some will take the form of responding to samples of student writing or to other class discussion topics. Complete descriptions for every post will be available on the ALL-CLASS DISCUSSION BOARD in the prompt for the post.
Deadlines. Posts will appear at the start of the week, typically on Monday but no later than Tuesday by 1:00 (the time our class is supposed to meet face-to-face). The exact deadline will be posted in the discussion board prompt, but, generally, posts are due the FOLLOWING CLASS DAY no later than midnight. In other words, a prompt posted on a Tuesday means your deadline is midnight Thursday. A prompt posted on a Thursday means your deadline is midnight on Tuesday. Prompts where you only have two days to post will require less of you than prompts where you have five days to post.
Reading Journals. In a face-to-face class, you would produce 700 word reading journals that you would print out and bring to class. They would be informal writing that discusses the most important points from the assigned readings. For our online work, you will post no less than 200 words that identifies what you believe are the most important points of the reading. You will post another no less than 100 words that responds to the ideas of your classmates summarizing, clarifying, adding to, or questioning the ideas you are reading in their posts. The remaining roughly 400 words will be made up in synchronous or asynchronous class discussion follow up (more on this once I determine availability.
Responding to Writing Posts. The hardest part about teaching writing is learning to respond meaningfully to student writing. Each week, you will get a piece of sample student writing, and you will be invited to talk about how you would assess that piece of writing. There are no right or wrong answers here. This is a learning process. Responding to Writing will culminate in your response to a portfolio of student work at the end of our five weeks together.
Book Club. The ELA classroom in K-12, is for better or for worse, is a class where reading literature is the primary work. Teaching writing is, even in the frameworks, secondary. But good writing pedagogy supports strong reading and builds strong readers. And, reciprocally, good readers become good writers--you are all living proof of that (as am I). This assignment is a moment, in a class filled with theories of writing, to take time to understand theories of reading as well and, most importantly, the intimate connection between the two.
Formal Writing. You will be responsible for three formal projects this semester. More information on each of these assignments is available on our class website, accessible by clicking on the title of each assignment below or as a link in the drop down menu under "ENGL 301 Writing & the Teaching. . . ". There you will find more detailed explanations of the assignment as well as all of the components of the assignment you are expected to complete in order to earn full credit and a strong grade for that assignment.
Interview with a Teacher. It's easy to have ideas about what it means to be a teacher, and a very different thing to actually teach. In this first assignment. As a class, either synchronously or via recorded session, we will have the chance to interview BSU alumni at various stages in their teaching careers. We will devise questions designed to get at what it's like to be a working professional in a classroom. I will conduct the interviews via Zoom and you will either participate during a synchronous class session or watch a recording after the face. You will write about what you learn. You'll turn in a final report as part of your final portfolio for this class. As a class, during week five, we will analyze these interviews for important themes about the joy and difficulty of teaching writing and reading.
Research in Teaching Diverse Populations: Pecha Kucha. This project will involve doing independent research on teaching students who have historically been underserved in the US classroom. In small groups, you will divide up a particular topic (teaching children of addicts, teaching homeless and under-housed students) and conduct modest research. Each student will be responsible for "presenting" on their own topic and articles. 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.
Assignment Design. The final assignment of the summer asks you to develop a writing assignment that reflects the values you would want to bring to a reading/writing classroom. The design will be entirely yours, as will the assessment and the rational. I’m not an education professor, and I don’t have strict rules about how this information is presented. I just want to see a really great and creative assignment, how you’ll evaluate it, and why you think it is great. It should be the most fun assignment of the semester.
Final Portfolio. Revision is an important part of the writing process, and in an effort to make that clear to you I need to value it in the classroom. The way I do this is by the portfolio. At the end of the five weeks, you will turn in a final electronic portfolio. That portfolio will include some revised work as well as a collection of informal work that will not require revision. Most importantly, you will do some reflection on what you've learned as a future teacher of writing. Portfolios are importantly tied to your evaluation in this class, as you will see in the “Evaluation” section of this document. Specific information is available online at the “portfolios” link on our class website.
EVALUATION
I will be using a combination of spec grading (see the discussion of keeping track of "A"s & "U"s above) and contract grading for each of the major assignments and reading journal/book club. How that will work is explained in the details for each assignment available on this our class website. You will still receive written feedback on formal writing assignments emailed directly to you.
For each formal assignment you will receive extensive written feedback on all formal writing assignments in the form of a email when you turn the draft in to me. I will discuss samples of these letters with you before the first major writing assignment in a class update so you have a sense of what this feedback looks like and how it is connected to your final letter grade for each assignment and the class as a whole. You can read actual sample draft letters for actual students from previous semesters--names changed--in the attached file here:
This course is designed to help prospective teachers develop a personal and professional sense of what they want their writing/reading classrooms to look like. To do this, the class will read and write together about current research and theory on the reading and writing process; about the reading/writing classroom, past and present; about the rules, regulations, and requirements placed upon you as teachers today; about the needs of all students as we help them become thoughtful readers and writers themselves. As we move forward with our understanding of all of this, we will remember where we all start: as students. Thus, you will examine your own personal writing/reading practices and your experience as a student as it impacts your future classroom as a teacher.
While we will explore various ways to theorize your teaching practice, my own classroom practice will identify the theories that I value. The classroom I construct will therefore reinforce particular theories of language and composition (and you should know this going in to the deal).
You will write informally and formally; you will work individually and as a group; you will present your ideas orally and in print. At the end of the semester you should have the beginnings of a set of documents that you can take with you into your professional career, and a theory/philosophy of their significance in your future classroom (that may or may not reflect what I value).
A NOTE ABOUT THIS CLASS IN SUMMER 2020. This course is one of my favorite courses to teach and perhaps the single most important course I teach because this class will play a role in teaching folks who will then go out and teach others. I never imagined this course as an online course, and I also never taught the class as a class to teach teachers how to teach writing online. And yet here we all are. This course is a substantial course with a substantial workload during the regular semester; I believe it is more challenging in five weeks, and even more so online. In our time together, it is my goal to make this online experience as thoughtful and useful as a face-to-face experience, and to develop our class into a true community of teachers and learners, a community of practice dedicated to exceptional literacy instruction.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of this course you will:
- Identify and interrogate the culture of the writing/reading classroom in the United States today,
- Compare and Contrast various theories of reading and writing,
- Identify the challenges and joys of teaching reading/writing to all students,
- Design meaningful reading/writing assignments that inculcate these theories of reading, writing, and inclusiveness,
- Design meaningful assessments of these assignments that demonstrate these theories of reading, writing, and inclusiveness,
- And, finally, begin to develop a professional persona in a reading/writing teaching portfolio.
COURSE TEXTS
There are two text available in the bookstore for purchase (the titles are live links to the Amazon page):
Lives On the Boundary: A Moving Account of the Struggles &
Achievements of America's Educationally Underprepared
by Mike Rose
Write Beside Them: Risk, Voice & Clarity in High School Writing
by Penny Kittle
Other readings, videos, or podcasts are available on the syllabus for your respective class either as a file to download or as a link. Including the .PDF of Asao Inoue's Anti-Racist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching & Assessing Writing For A Socially Just Future.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Attendance online. Your attendance is measured by the work you turn in and, when required, synchronous meetings (note: synchronous meetings are pending availability. If you have not yet filled out the availability survey, you can do so here).
Class Updates. It might seem silly to need to include this, but I've had experience in classes where students don't read these updates, thus, I include it as a requirement of the class. How will I know if you aren't reading? Trust me. I will know. And I won't hesitate to call you out on it. Updates for our class will appear on Wednesdays and Fridays each week by 5:00 PM. I will email you to alert you to that announcement. Sometimes I will video a message. Sometimes it will be a powerpoint with audio. Sometimes it will just be text. Class updates are more than just information about what to do next--they are that--but they are also a place where I try to bring together ideas and concepts you’ve been discussing in class as well as information that I think might have gotten left out of the conversation. It’s also a place for me to acknowledge particularly good ideas and the people in our class who have them.
Discussion Board Posts and Posting Deadlines. Discussion board post prompts will be posted to the ALL-CLASS DISCUSSION BOARD. Discussions are relatively informal, meaning I'm looking for thoughtful content most of all, not perfect writing (online does not lend itself to formal writing). Some are very specifically about the readings, those posts will count as a reading journals (read about that assignment below or on the reading journal assignment page). Some will take the form of responding to samples of student writing or to other class discussion topics. Complete descriptions for every post will be available on the ALL-CLASS DISCUSSION BOARD in the prompt for the post.
Deadlines. Posts will appear at the start of the week, typically on Monday but no later than Tuesday by 1:00 (the time our class is supposed to meet face-to-face). The exact deadline will be posted in the discussion board prompt, but, generally, posts are due the FOLLOWING CLASS DAY no later than midnight. In other words, a prompt posted on a Tuesday means your deadline is midnight Thursday. A prompt posted on a Thursday means your deadline is midnight on Tuesday. Prompts where you only have two days to post will require less of you than prompts where you have five days to post.
Reading Journals. In a face-to-face class, you would produce 700 word reading journals that you would print out and bring to class. They would be informal writing that discusses the most important points from the assigned readings. For our online work, you will post no less than 200 words that identifies what you believe are the most important points of the reading. You will post another no less than 100 words that responds to the ideas of your classmates summarizing, clarifying, adding to, or questioning the ideas you are reading in their posts. The remaining roughly 400 words will be made up in synchronous or asynchronous class discussion follow up (more on this once I determine availability.
Responding to Writing Posts. The hardest part about teaching writing is learning to respond meaningfully to student writing. Each week, you will get a piece of sample student writing, and you will be invited to talk about how you would assess that piece of writing. There are no right or wrong answers here. This is a learning process. Responding to Writing will culminate in your response to a portfolio of student work at the end of our five weeks together.
Book Club. The ELA classroom in K-12, is for better or for worse, is a class where reading literature is the primary work. Teaching writing is, even in the frameworks, secondary. But good writing pedagogy supports strong reading and builds strong readers. And, reciprocally, good readers become good writers--you are all living proof of that (as am I). This assignment is a moment, in a class filled with theories of writing, to take time to understand theories of reading as well and, most importantly, the intimate connection between the two.
Formal Writing. You will be responsible for three formal projects this semester. More information on each of these assignments is available on our class website, accessible by clicking on the title of each assignment below or as a link in the drop down menu under "ENGL 301 Writing & the Teaching. . . ". There you will find more detailed explanations of the assignment as well as all of the components of the assignment you are expected to complete in order to earn full credit and a strong grade for that assignment.
Interview with a Teacher. It's easy to have ideas about what it means to be a teacher, and a very different thing to actually teach. In this first assignment. As a class, either synchronously or via recorded session, we will have the chance to interview BSU alumni at various stages in their teaching careers. We will devise questions designed to get at what it's like to be a working professional in a classroom. I will conduct the interviews via Zoom and you will either participate during a synchronous class session or watch a recording after the face. You will write about what you learn. You'll turn in a final report as part of your final portfolio for this class. As a class, during week five, we will analyze these interviews for important themes about the joy and difficulty of teaching writing and reading.
Research in Teaching Diverse Populations: Pecha Kucha. This project will involve doing independent research on teaching students who have historically been underserved in the US classroom. In small groups, you will divide up a particular topic (teaching children of addicts, teaching homeless and under-housed students) and conduct modest research. Each student will be responsible for "presenting" on their own topic and articles. 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.
Assignment Design. The final assignment of the summer asks you to develop a writing assignment that reflects the values you would want to bring to a reading/writing classroom. The design will be entirely yours, as will the assessment and the rational. I’m not an education professor, and I don’t have strict rules about how this information is presented. I just want to see a really great and creative assignment, how you’ll evaluate it, and why you think it is great. It should be the most fun assignment of the semester.
Final Portfolio. Revision is an important part of the writing process, and in an effort to make that clear to you I need to value it in the classroom. The way I do this is by the portfolio. At the end of the five weeks, you will turn in a final electronic portfolio. That portfolio will include some revised work as well as a collection of informal work that will not require revision. Most importantly, you will do some reflection on what you've learned as a future teacher of writing. Portfolios are importantly tied to your evaluation in this class, as you will see in the “Evaluation” section of this document. Specific information is available online at the “portfolios” link on our class website.
EVALUATION
I will be using a combination of spec grading (see the discussion of keeping track of "A"s & "U"s above) and contract grading for each of the major assignments and reading journal/book club. How that will work is explained in the details for each assignment available on this our class website. You will still receive written feedback on formal writing assignments emailed directly to you.
For each formal assignment you will receive extensive written feedback on all formal writing assignments in the form of a email when you turn the draft in to me. I will discuss samples of these letters with you before the first major writing assignment in a class update so you have a sense of what this feedback looks like and how it is connected to your final letter grade for each assignment and the class as a whole. You can read actual sample draft letters for actual students from previous semesters--names changed--in the attached file here:
| sample.eval.letters.301__1_.pdf |
Comments on All-Class Discussion Board Posts will happen in Class Updates. It shouldn’t be treated like evaluation but rather like an ongoing conversation between the class and me: think of it as a talk between us, only in written form. If I'm not writing anything about what you are posting, I'm bored, and you should step up your game. But your only cause for real alarm--the kind of alarm that would affect your grade--should be if I email you this (and I would only email you this privately; I'd never out someone in a class update): "you aren't taking this work seriously," or "based on what you've written here, you don't seem to doing all the reading" or some version of that. Included on the Reading Journal assignment page are specific details about what you need to do for your 200 word reading journal post and 100 word reading journal response for it to be acceptable and how many acceptable journals will result in a strong grade in this class for that assignment.
KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR "A"s & "U"s
Here is how I keep track of your All-Class Discussion Board posts: Each week, after I've read through the blog posts, I will assign you either an "A" or a "U" ("A" for acceptable and "U" for unacceptable). If you earn a "U" on anything, I will make sure you know and know why and you are welcome to revise that "U" into an "A" no matter how many times it takes to get it there.
I don't keep track of the date of the "A" or "U" received, and I don't keep track of what you turn in as a revision of a "U." I just enter marks into my book each week. At the end of the five weeks, I total up how many "A"s you end up with and that tells me what grade you've earned. So if you post by the deadline for all of the assignments and always get "A" for acceptable, great. If you post by the deadline and get all "U"s but then revise them to "A"s, that will be reflected in my book and you are golden too. If you have some "A"s and then, say, one post you keep getting a "U" on week after week, but you still have enough "A"s to earn you an "A" grade in the end, all those "U"s just don't matter.
But here is the thing: Once I've given you the "A" or the "U", my role is done until next week. I can't tell you which posts you get "A"s on and which you got "U"s on after the fact. All I'll be able to do is tell you where you are at in the "A" column. It's up to you to keep track of a "U" in need of revision.
Comments on Formal Projects. You will not necessarily get a letter grade the first time you turn in an assignment, but you will get feedback. Feedback on Formal Assignments are typically meant to guide your revision process and/or prepare you for the next assignment. For each of those assignments (Interview with a Teacher, Research in Teaching Diverse Populations, Assignment Design), there are several components that you must complete in order to earn full credit. They are specific to the assignment, but, generally, you are required to turn in drafts and revisions and participate in whatever workshop and/or conference required for that assignment. Read the specific assignment pages for the requirements for each assignment. You will complete drafts of your formal projects during weeks two, three, and four of the summer. You'll get feedback, and you will turn in any revisions in your final portfolio at the end of week five.
If you don't use blackboard, how will I know how I'm doing in class?
Like I said, you'll get a lot of feedback (read above). Also, during week three, you will receive a “grade-so-far." This will cover the work you've done so far in class and assign a formal letter grade to it. At the end of the five weeks, you will receive a shorter “final grade” letter that reflects your cumulative grades on assignments grade as well as your overall grade for the summer. . In these letters you will receive a letter grade and an overview of your performance in the class up to that point. That will include a review of your in-class preparedness, your reading journals, your work on formal assignments and/or presentations, and your reflection and revision completed as part of your portfolio. You can read sample midterm letters, names changed, here:
KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR "A"s & "U"s
Here is how I keep track of your All-Class Discussion Board posts: Each week, after I've read through the blog posts, I will assign you either an "A" or a "U" ("A" for acceptable and "U" for unacceptable). If you earn a "U" on anything, I will make sure you know and know why and you are welcome to revise that "U" into an "A" no matter how many times it takes to get it there.
I don't keep track of the date of the "A" or "U" received, and I don't keep track of what you turn in as a revision of a "U." I just enter marks into my book each week. At the end of the five weeks, I total up how many "A"s you end up with and that tells me what grade you've earned. So if you post by the deadline for all of the assignments and always get "A" for acceptable, great. If you post by the deadline and get all "U"s but then revise them to "A"s, that will be reflected in my book and you are golden too. If you have some "A"s and then, say, one post you keep getting a "U" on week after week, but you still have enough "A"s to earn you an "A" grade in the end, all those "U"s just don't matter.
But here is the thing: Once I've given you the "A" or the "U", my role is done until next week. I can't tell you which posts you get "A"s on and which you got "U"s on after the fact. All I'll be able to do is tell you where you are at in the "A" column. It's up to you to keep track of a "U" in need of revision.
Comments on Formal Projects. You will not necessarily get a letter grade the first time you turn in an assignment, but you will get feedback. Feedback on Formal Assignments are typically meant to guide your revision process and/or prepare you for the next assignment. For each of those assignments (Interview with a Teacher, Research in Teaching Diverse Populations, Assignment Design), there are several components that you must complete in order to earn full credit. They are specific to the assignment, but, generally, you are required to turn in drafts and revisions and participate in whatever workshop and/or conference required for that assignment. Read the specific assignment pages for the requirements for each assignment. You will complete drafts of your formal projects during weeks two, three, and four of the summer. You'll get feedback, and you will turn in any revisions in your final portfolio at the end of week five.
If you don't use blackboard, how will I know how I'm doing in class?
Like I said, you'll get a lot of feedback (read above). Also, during week three, you will receive a “grade-so-far." This will cover the work you've done so far in class and assign a formal letter grade to it. At the end of the five weeks, you will receive a shorter “final grade” letter that reflects your cumulative grades on assignments grade as well as your overall grade for the summer. . In these letters you will receive a letter grade and an overview of your performance in the class up to that point. That will include a review of your in-class preparedness, your reading journals, your work on formal assignments and/or presentations, and your reflection and revision completed as part of your portfolio. You can read sample midterm letters, names changed, here:
| midterm.evaluations.301.sample.pdf |
Different assignments carry different weight in any class, here is a break down of what percentage of your grade each assignment will contribute to your overall grade.
All Class Discussion Board Posts: Reading Journals 15%
All Class Discussion Board Posts: Responding to Writing 10%
Interview with a Teacher 10%
Book Club 15%
Research in Teaching Diverse Populations 15%
Assignment Design 15%
Final Portfolio 20%
I have never encountered a student who didn’t have a clear sense of how they were doing in my class based on this system of evaluation, but if you should feel that you don’t know how you are doing, come see me. We’ll figure it out.
Ultimately, your success in this class depends on the following:
This form of evaluation is a combination of something called "spec grading" and portfolio assessment. Spec grading allows me to value sheer effort while still leaving room for particularly excellent effort that yields an excellent product. It is particularly helpful for low-stakes writing and for work that requires substantial process (like drafting and revising papers). Spec grading values the labor of education. Portfolio grading allows me to take a step back and consider the entire student over time.
I use this kind of evaluation because I want to be able to consider all the parts of your performance in our class, not just how good your final drafts of your papers are. I want to consider where you started and how much you improved. I want to consider how hard you tried (or didn’t try) in class. I want to consider how you contribute to class on a daily basis--not by being the one who always talks, but by paying attention, contributing when you have something thoughtful to say, helping to make your group work go smoothly, really giving your all to our reading journals and in-class writing. I have found that this kind of grading rewards hard-working students as well as students that are just naturally good at something. And, for that reason, I think it is the most fair way to run a writing classroom. I hope you’ll come to agree.
OTHER THINGS
Plagiarism. How you could plagiarize in a class like this, I don’t know, but please don’t try. I will fail you because the last person in the world who should be standing up and teaching is a cheater.
Students with disabilities. Students who need special accommodations due to a documented disability should come to see me with written documentation of the specific disability and suggested accommodations before the end of the first week of classes. We can discuss specific accommodations at that time. I try to employ universal design in my classes; if you see a way to make the class more accessible, tell me. I want to know.
The Writing Studio. I think the Writing Studio is keeping summer online hours. Located in the Academic Achievement Center, on the bottom floor of the Library, the Writing Studio is available to any and all students at whatever level of expertise you might be at.
Other Resources on Campus. There are a wide variety of services available on our campus that you might want to know about but also might just be too inundated with information to remember you have access to, so I'm including links to a variety of places on campus that I think you might want to know about. Of course, all of these offices are now functioning online--but it is important to remember that they are still functioning. First and foremost is probably the counseling center and the wellness center. Other places you can go if you want to connect with folks: the Center for Multicultural Affairs, the Pride Center, the campus food bank, and Commuter Services. Making a connection to this campus is the number one way you'll get from day one to graduation.
Title IX and Sexual Violence. The Office of Equal Opportunity and the Title IX Coordinator work to ensure that all members of the campus community flourish in a supportive and fair climate. See https://my.bridgew.edu/departments/affirmativeaction/SitePages/Home.aspx to learn more.
SOME ADVICE ABOUT MANAGING THE WORK LOAD OF A 300 LEVEL ONLINE CLASS.
A word about asking questions and getting them answered: As this is an online class, it's useful if we function as a community of practice, and by that I mean that we all work together to make the class work and for everyone to do the best work they can do. To that end, rather than emailing me individual questions on any assignment, I'm asking you to post your question to the Class Discussion Board. Each week, I will post a new Q&A Discussion Board for you to post questions and get answers. I will check that Board every 48 hours and during office hours and respond as best I can to your questions. This will keep me from having to answer the same question 26 times, and, it is always true, that if you have a question it means that most other people have the same one or some version of it.
This is a 300 level English class that you are taking in five weeks rather than 15. It is a lot of work. But I believe I am fair, and I am supportive. If we find that we need to make changes to the class structure we will. Additionally, this class in online. In my opinion, online makes somethings harder. My most recent experience of a hybrid class is that students tend not to look at what is due until the day it is due. This is not good practice. I have set up class so that you are doing work for Tuesday and for Thursday. Further, if you can read ahead, do that. Keeping up with the reading is perhaps the most difficult part of the class and the most important.
Regardless of whether this class in online or face-to-face: while this class will present you with many challenges, I believe it has its share of pleasures and rewards. What matters most to me is that you try to be the best student you are capable of being—that you try to improve as a writer and thinker. No good teacher wants to give a student a bad grade. Good standing in this class is yours to lose.
All Class Discussion Board Posts: Reading Journals 15%
All Class Discussion Board Posts: Responding to Writing 10%
Interview with a Teacher 10%
Book Club 15%
Research in Teaching Diverse Populations 15%
Assignment Design 15%
Final Portfolio 20%
I have never encountered a student who didn’t have a clear sense of how they were doing in my class based on this system of evaluation, but if you should feel that you don’t know how you are doing, come see me. We’ll figure it out.
Ultimately, your success in this class depends on the following:
- Fulfilling all of the requirements listed above,
- The quality of your written and oral work,
- Your efforts to try new things and think in new ways.
This form of evaluation is a combination of something called "spec grading" and portfolio assessment. Spec grading allows me to value sheer effort while still leaving room for particularly excellent effort that yields an excellent product. It is particularly helpful for low-stakes writing and for work that requires substantial process (like drafting and revising papers). Spec grading values the labor of education. Portfolio grading allows me to take a step back and consider the entire student over time.
I use this kind of evaluation because I want to be able to consider all the parts of your performance in our class, not just how good your final drafts of your papers are. I want to consider where you started and how much you improved. I want to consider how hard you tried (or didn’t try) in class. I want to consider how you contribute to class on a daily basis--not by being the one who always talks, but by paying attention, contributing when you have something thoughtful to say, helping to make your group work go smoothly, really giving your all to our reading journals and in-class writing. I have found that this kind of grading rewards hard-working students as well as students that are just naturally good at something. And, for that reason, I think it is the most fair way to run a writing classroom. I hope you’ll come to agree.
OTHER THINGS
Plagiarism. How you could plagiarize in a class like this, I don’t know, but please don’t try. I will fail you because the last person in the world who should be standing up and teaching is a cheater.
Students with disabilities. Students who need special accommodations due to a documented disability should come to see me with written documentation of the specific disability and suggested accommodations before the end of the first week of classes. We can discuss specific accommodations at that time. I try to employ universal design in my classes; if you see a way to make the class more accessible, tell me. I want to know.
The Writing Studio. I think the Writing Studio is keeping summer online hours. Located in the Academic Achievement Center, on the bottom floor of the Library, the Writing Studio is available to any and all students at whatever level of expertise you might be at.
Other Resources on Campus. There are a wide variety of services available on our campus that you might want to know about but also might just be too inundated with information to remember you have access to, so I'm including links to a variety of places on campus that I think you might want to know about. Of course, all of these offices are now functioning online--but it is important to remember that they are still functioning. First and foremost is probably the counseling center and the wellness center. Other places you can go if you want to connect with folks: the Center for Multicultural Affairs, the Pride Center, the campus food bank, and Commuter Services. Making a connection to this campus is the number one way you'll get from day one to graduation.
Title IX and Sexual Violence. The Office of Equal Opportunity and the Title IX Coordinator work to ensure that all members of the campus community flourish in a supportive and fair climate. See https://my.bridgew.edu/departments/affirmativeaction/SitePages/Home.aspx to learn more.
SOME ADVICE ABOUT MANAGING THE WORK LOAD OF A 300 LEVEL ONLINE CLASS.
A word about asking questions and getting them answered: As this is an online class, it's useful if we function as a community of practice, and by that I mean that we all work together to make the class work and for everyone to do the best work they can do. To that end, rather than emailing me individual questions on any assignment, I'm asking you to post your question to the Class Discussion Board. Each week, I will post a new Q&A Discussion Board for you to post questions and get answers. I will check that Board every 48 hours and during office hours and respond as best I can to your questions. This will keep me from having to answer the same question 26 times, and, it is always true, that if you have a question it means that most other people have the same one or some version of it.
This is a 300 level English class that you are taking in five weeks rather than 15. It is a lot of work. But I believe I am fair, and I am supportive. If we find that we need to make changes to the class structure we will. Additionally, this class in online. In my opinion, online makes somethings harder. My most recent experience of a hybrid class is that students tend not to look at what is due until the day it is due. This is not good practice. I have set up class so that you are doing work for Tuesday and for Thursday. Further, if you can read ahead, do that. Keeping up with the reading is perhaps the most difficult part of the class and the most important.
Regardless of whether this class in online or face-to-face: while this class will present you with many challenges, I believe it has its share of pleasures and rewards. What matters most to me is that you try to be the best student you are capable of being—that you try to improve as a writer and thinker. No good teacher wants to give a student a bad grade. Good standing in this class is yours to lose.